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THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF 


A ROMANCE OF THE DAY 


BY 

JOSEPH HATTON 

AUIHOR OF 

“BY ORDER OF THE CZAR,” “ CLYTIE,’ “ CHRISTOPHER 
KENWICK,” “JOHN NEEDHAM’S DOUBLE,” ETC. 



“ Every thing is two-iaced — even Virtue.” 

— Balzac^ 



JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 



Copyright, 1891, 

BY 

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. 


All Rights Reserved. 


TO 

NOAH BROOKS, 

MY FIRST FRIEND IN AMERICA, I DEDICATE MY FIRST AMERICAN 


COPYRIGHT 


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THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


CHAPTER 1. 

HOW THE TROUBLE BEGAN. 

“ To see each other, to profess to love each other, to prove 
it to quarrel, to hate, then to separate, that one may seek a 
new love— this is the history of a moment, and of every day in 
the comedy of the world .” — Be Varennes. 

“The Slav women have a natural grace and strength of 
physique, an earnestness of face and fine white teeth that should 
make up for the general absence of what in Western Europe is 
called beauty of feature. But the Princess — or barina, as they 
called her on her husband’s estate — possessed the native char- 
acteristic of form and figure with a peculiar beauty of her own. 
She had above all things that is very rarely seen in the Russian 
woman, a blooming complexion. It was as if all that is strik- 
ing in the handsome, cultured, and aristocratic Russian lady 
had found a happy commingling with the typical grace of the 
woman of the people. Her gait was regal, her mien queenly, 
and her voice was music. Not an ordinary subject of the Czar, 
you will say; nor was she; but do not tell me there are no 
beautiful Russians, and as for hospitality, why the barina would 
often have her tumble-down palace full of guests, and would 
slaughter no end of calves and pigs in their honor .” — Travels 
in Russia. 


“ A LADY to see milord Travers,” was the message of 


6 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


the concierge to the calm and self-possessed valet of 
the English traveller. 

“ It is Madame the Princess,” said Mellish to his 
master, who rose up from his chair, six feet odd of 
careless good nature, brown velveteen, and calf-skin 
slippers, moved by considerable surprise, not to say 
embarrassment. 

“ At this time of night ! ” exclaimed Travers, lay- 
ing down a half smoked cigar, dusting some of its 
ashes from the front of his jacket, and shaking him- 
self very much as a big Newfoundland dog might 
after an unfinished sleep. 

The next moment, framed in the open doorway, 
with its massive portiere drawn aside, there stood 
before him a beautiful woman enveloped from head 
to foot in a cloak of Russian sables. 

“ I have quarrelled with the Prince for the last 
time ; I am here ; I seek your protection,” she said, 
in a voice, made all the more musical by a pretty, 
hesitating, foreign accent. 

“ Yes,” said Travers, “ won’t you come in ? ” 

“ Ah, my friend,” she answered, approaching him, 
“ you do not know what indignity I have suffered, 
and yet my heart tells me it may be for the best.” 

“ I hope so,” said Travers, offering her a chair by 
the fire. 

“ I feel certain that it is so,” the Princess replied. 

“ The Prince may naturally resent your seeking 
protection at my hands. WTiat do you think he will 
say when he is informed of your visit, and at this 
time of night ? ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 7 

“The Prince has finished what he has co say,” 
she answered, looking’ into the fire, her pale, hand- 
- some face catching the ruddy light, that emphasised 
the deep, golden red of her wealth of rippled hair. 

“ You have taken a very serious step. Princess,” 
Travers replied. 

“Ah, you say so; you are not glad to see me, 
you do not give me welcome,” the Princess replied, 
rising from her seat, and as she did so her cloak of 
sables fell in a heap upon the fioor, disclosing her 
fair form in a soft, clinging evening dress of black 
lace. 

The effect was magical ; even to Dick’s somewhat 
slow imagination it suggested the sun breaking 
through a sombre cloud. He looked at his visitor 
with undisguised admiration, as he said, “ my dear 
Princess, I should not speak the truth if I did not 
say you have given me a great surprise, and I cannot 
conceal from you or from myself that the pleasure is 
as great as the surprise.” 

“You English are reticent of nature, it is your 
character, but when you speak it is the truth ; and 
yet I did not look to be received so cold, so undemon- 
stratif when I seek your protection against insult 
— against blows.” 

“ Blows ! ” exclaimed Dick. 

“ I carry their bruises, but I feel the pam most in 
my heart, my pride ; well, then, if I seek your friend- 
ship in vain, why it is only to go away again,” and 
she stooped to pick up her cloak. 

♦‘No, no,” said Dick, his face flushing; “lam 


8 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


not a courtier, as you know, but I am at your com- 
mand ; it is for you to say what you wish, I am your 
slave.” 

Madame held out her hand with the regal air of 
an imperial station . Dick pressed the white j e welled 
fingers to his lips, and the Princess glided back into 
her seat before the fire. 

“You relief my mind,” she said, with a sigh, 
“ you make me happy.” 

“It is an honour and a delight to serve you,” 
said Travers. 

The Princess looked into the fire. Her attitude 
was one of thoughtful repose. A small foot in satin 
shoes peeped out from beneath a white frilled 
petticoat. Her dress was cut just sufficiently low — 
and that was all — to show the white, lovely contour 
of her shoulders and delicate bust. Her hair had 
partly fallen away from the jewelled fastenings of 
brooch and pin. Dick stood by her chair. Neither 
of them spoke for some time. Dick felt his heart 
beat against his. waistcoat. He began to forget the 
Prince ; his sense of propriety gradually became 
dulled; his thoughts were absorbed in the lovely 
image before him. 

Presently the lovely image looked up into his face, 
with the somewhat matter-of-fact remark, “The 
Prince leaves Paris early in the morning for St. 
Petersburg. I told him I should seek your advice, 
and your protection.” 

“ Yes,” said Travers, with an alternating sense 
of pleasure and anxiety, “ and what did he say ? ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


9 


“ He replied with a wolfish snarl, that I am not 
his serf. Ah, my friend, had I been that, he would 
have had me fiogged, perhaps. You know that the 
Prince and I have for a long time understood the 
one and the other as to our mutual responsibilities.” 

“ You informed me on the ship,” said Travers, 
drawing a chair by her side, and taking her soft 
white hand in his great paw. 

“ Do you love me as you tell me, oh, so often ? ” 
she asked. 

A great diamond lying serene on the bodice of 
her black lace dress was not more lustrous in the 
firelight than her great languishing violet eyes, into 
whose liquid depths the English traveller gazed 
with undisguised rapture. 

“ Do I love you ! ” he exclaimed. “ By heavens, I 
ought not to, but I do, with all my soul,” he said, 
kissing the upturned face. 

“ Ah, how happy we shall be,” she murmured. 

Travers was not clever enough to shape his best 
thoughts into words, but he was a man of observa- 
tion, and he had something of the dumb poet in his 
nature. 

It occurred to him that with all her culture there 
was a great deal of the unsophisticated character of 
the savage Princess in this beautiful woman’s way- 
ward abandonment. 

“ Shall we not be very happy now that I have 
come? ” she asked, rising, and surveying the room, 
still her hand in his. 

“ You have come to remain ? ” 


10 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“ Oh, yes.” 

“ You have dismissed your carriage ? ” 

« Oh, yes ! ” she said in her dreamy way ; and then 
suddenly turning to him exclaimed, “ Did you not 
understand ? ” 

“Why, dearest, of course,” he said, more in 
response to her upbraiding eyes than in reply to her 
question. 

“ Did you not say on board the Oriental that if 
ever I should desire a friend, a true friend, I should 
come to you ? ” 

“ Yes, yes; of course, my love.” 

“ And at the Embassy Ball, two nights ago, that 
you died of envy of the Prince ; and oh, how you 
would give the world to call me your own ? Mon 
Dieu ! have I to remind you of these things ? What 
have I done ? Oh, but it is not too late : I go ! ” 

She took up her cloak, but as she wrapped it 
about her fair shoulders, Travers suddenly drew 
her into his arms. 

“ Princess, forgive me,” he said, bending over her, 
“ I am mad with joy ; I do not realise the happiness 
you offer me ; do not leave me. I was only thinking 
of you— the trouble that might come out of this 
love for you, not for me, for you. I love you ! I 
love you ! ” 

“ Is it that I stay then ? ” she asked, her cloak 
slipping to the ground, leaving her once more in 
full view, a lovely woman in evening dress, black 
lace and diamonds ; syren- like, beautiful, with hair 
of Titian hue, piled upon her well shaped head and 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


11 


fastened with a poignard sparkling with gems. Her 
complexion was of that “ rich ” tone which Lord 
Beaconsfield always associated with the highest class 
of aristocratic beauty. Her mouth was full and 
generous in its lines ; her nose somewhat small, but 
giving piquancy to features that otherwise might 
have seemed coarse if not sensual. In short she 
was a fine, well-built, handsome, showy, graceful 
woman ; and one might well be permitted to wonder 
why the Prince, her husband, had parted from her 
with so much apparent ease and freedom. 

Having satisfied himself that the Princess had 
really resolved to take up her abode, at least for the 
time being, in the Palace Vendome, Travers sum- 
moned his man, a silent, respectful, sleek, grey- 
headed servant — valet, secretary, and sometimes 
companion all in one — and requested him to call 
madame the housekeeper, bringing meanwhile some 
tea for madame the Princess. 

“ There are two rooms overlooking the quadran- 
gle,” said the Englishman to his lovely guest, “ they 
are occupied by the King’s messenger ; I had set 
them apart for any such guest, and I was going to 
ask a compatriot from England to come and see 
me; but I little thought how much more honoured 
the rooms would be ; to-morrow you shall refurnish 
them as you please ; to-night the housekeeper shall 
make such arrangements as circumstances will 
permit. What luggage have you ? ” 

“ A very little for to-night ; my maid Estelle will 
bring it in a short time, and in the morning I will 


12 


TBE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


arrange for the remainder ; you are very thoughtful, 
dear friend.” 

“ Tea for Madame the Princess,” said Hellish, the 
Englishman’s valet, introducing with a silver tray 
upon which were various confections, a smart French 
maid, who proceeded while she waited upon the 
Princess, to annoimce that madame the housekeeper 
would at once present herself before milord for his 
commands. 

Milord, it will be well at once to state, was simply 
Richard Gordon Travers, the only son of the famous 
ironfounder of Middlesborough, in England, and 
Middlesborough in America, Sir Gordon Travers, 
M. P., one of the wealthiest of Northcountrymen, 
and one of the most devoted fathers in the world. 

Travers had been educated at Oxford, but had 
been unable to do more than get up a tremendous 
reputation for strength of limb and capacity for every- 
thing that combined common sense with physical cap- 
acity. He was a big-hearted, brave, kindly fellow, six 
feet two in his stockings, with large hands and feet, 
large mild grey eyes, a hearty laugh, and a cultivated 
manner, that on a first acquaintance suggested the 
brains of a don with the easy air of a gentleman. 

But when we meet Travers in Paris the captive 
of Cupid’s most lawless arrow, he had only just 
returned from a three years’ absence in the wilds of 
Africa, where he had, at his own expense, conducted 
an expedition of investigation and sport, and had 
“ put in ” at Paris, as he phrased it, to get a taste 
of the finest civilisation before he went down into 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. IB 

the heart of Yorkshire, to see his kith and kin and 
take a long rest. 

As luck or misfortune would have it, his father 
was away; gone to Norway to see some new mines, 
and was probably ignorant of Dick’s return. The 
traveller therefore felt little compunction in extend- 
ing his visit to the gay city, and awaiting news of 
his father. He had met the Prince and Princess 
Mazaroff at Brindisi, and had travelled with them 
to Paris. The Princess had been the admired of all 
admirers on board the P. and O. steamer, and Tra- 
vers had successfully competed with some half a 
dozen gallants for her special favour ; he had joined 
her and the Prince in their state-room at tifiin, had 
played ecarte with them and a couple of French 
officers ; had lost heavily and with a charming sang- 
froid that had made him quite pleasantly con- 
spicuous. 

Within only a few days the Princess had confided 
to the easy-going young Englishman - the fact that 
she was not happy with the Prince ; that she hated 
his country, that she was in short a miserable 
woman. 

“ Permit me to say that you do not look the part,” 
Travers had said ; “ you look as happy as you are 
beautiful.” 

“ Ah, you cannot read the heart,” she had replied ; 
“and you think the Prince is sincere in all the 
pretty compliments that he pays to me.” 

“ He treats you it seems to me with great courtesy 
and respect,” Travers had replied. 


14 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFE. 


“ That is his cunning Russian way,” she had 
answered ; “ but you do not know him ; some day 
perhaps you will be better acquainted.” 

“ But you are a Russian, Madame, are you not ? ” 
“ I am a cosmopolitan. Monsieur,” she replied ; 
«my father was a French count, my mother a 
Russian of the Court of Alexander; I have travelled 
much, I was married at seventeen, and I have never 
been a happy woman until I met you ! ” 

With such a prologue as this, enacted in the 
moonlight on sunny seas, it is not difficult to im- 
agine the possibilities of the scene which opens our 
drama of life in these free and easy days of the 
world’s social revolutions. 

“By Jove, I don’t half like it!” said Travers, 
when his guest had left the room with the house- 
keeper to be introduced to the apartments which he 
had mentioned for her use ; “ I should have had a 
bad quarter of an hour with an English housekeeper, 
but an English milord, with his hands continually in 
his pocket, can do what he likes on this side of the 
channel. I have come across queer husbands in my 
time, not to mention brutes, but Mazaroff is a rum 
’un, as Mellish would say. Perhaps they manage 
these things differently in Russia : I had pretty, if 
dusky, ladies offered to me as presents away beyond 
the Upper Congo, but no chief offered me his wife. 
Well, Mazaroff has not exactly done that! I sup- 
pose I shall get into some deuce of a mess. One 
makes a tour of Europe and Asia, and comes through 
a three years’ tramp of Africa, to get into trouble 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


15 


within the last few miles of home. Well, that’s 
common enough. Speke carried his rifle through 
the heart of Africa to shoot himself accidentally at 
Bath. I have stood the fire of a thousand flashing 
eyes in Italy, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, France, have 
indulged in mild flirtations with ebony Venuses, to 
fall at last before a Russian, and that Russian a 
wife and a Princess. What will be the end of it ? 
Well, who cares ; in for a penny in for a pound ! It 
is not my doing, by Jove it is not, I would have 
avoided it. Hello, Dick ! are you going on the old 
Adam lay, the woman tempted me and I did eat? 
No, old chap, take your pleasure and your punish- 
ment, like a man ! ” 

If the Princess had said that the Prince had 
bought her, a loveless bride, she would have spoken 
the truth. He was thirty years her senior — a 
shrivelled, querulous martinet, whom Kherasoff, 
where he lived, neither loved nor respected. 

They had been married some three or four years 
and had parted on two occasions, as was known to 
the gossips of the town, who discussed the domestic 
differences of the Mazaroffs with a freedom they did 
not permit themselves in the more important matter 
of imperial policy. 

Everybody admitted that the Princess was much 
too good for the Prince. One of the chief officials of 
the district, in an attempted flirtation, had as good 
as told her so, but he got nothing for his candour. 
The Princess informed him that when she desired 
his sympathy she would send for him. 


16 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


Everybody at Kherasoff knew that she and the 
Prince had many and violent quarrels. Indeed^ at 
Kherasoff everybody knew everybody else’s business. 

Once a year, in coimection with some sinecure 
office of court and government, Prince Mazaroff was 
called upon to put in an appearance at St. Peters- 
burg ; and it is not to be wondered at that an excita- 
ble, vain, and beautiful woman should have found in 
that city attractions that were denied to Kherasoff. 

A noble in the third degree, Mazaroff’s title of 
Prince had not the significance that belongs to that 
distinction in some other countries ; it nevertheless 
conferred honour and distinction and precedence, 
fiattered the vanity of the Princess, gave her the 
entree to the very highest society, and enabled her 
to compare her dull, stupid martinet of a husband 
with the more gallant men of the social world of 
St. Petersburg, and later with the men of Paris and 
Berlin. Mazaroff often treated her as if she were a 
serf ; he had occasional fits of drunkenness, in which 
he forgot that she was his wife, and in various ways 
gave her cause for anger and retaliation ; and as Kher- 
asoff well knew, she had twice left him for several 
months, to return each time, after a visit to his rela- 
tives, in St. Petersburg, with diamonds and brocades 
fit for an imperial princess. It was whispered that she 
had broken the bank at Monte Carlo ; it was boldly 
stated that she had a wealthy friend at Court who 
was not even a cousin ; and the most that even her 
few friends could say for her was that she had come 
into a fortime in her own right. As for the Prince, 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


17 


he rode about his barren acres, exercised a little 
oflScial authority over the local police, dispensed 
a certain mean but ostentatious hospitality, got 
drunk once a week, received his few rents when he 
could, sold his farm produce how he might, got his 
official pay with happy regularity, and did not care a 
copeck for anything or anybody. 

On an unexpected and secret mission— arranged by 
his wife without his knowledge, or even a suspicion 
of what she had done — the Prince had recently 
visited one of the Russian posts in Asia, had made 
a short stay at Algiers, and had curiously enough 
stayed for some time at Alexandria, accompanied of 
course by his wife, whose beauty and extravagance 
had astonished and delighted the English and other 
travellers who had had the honour of introductions 
to their Russian highnesses. Prince Mazaroff had 
himself been more than astonished, he had been 
annoyed by the pointed attentions lavished upon his 
wife by certain fellow voyagers, whose more than 
courteous admiration the Princess had appeared to 
encourage and accept. 

And thus the Prince and Princess had found 
themselves on board the same steamer as that upon 
which Travers was sailing homewards. 

On the day before the Princess appeared without 
announcement or ceremony at Travers’s rooms, she 
and the Prince had had their latest and most violent 
quarrel. It had begun with lightning flashes and 
tempest, and the mischief done, it had ended in a 
deep dead calm. 


2 


18 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Let us say no more,” said the Princess, “ I hate 
you, and there is an end of it.” 

“ You do not permit me to do anything more than 
reciprocate that most unnatural feeling,” said the 
Prince, with vicious courtesy. 

“ Very well, then let us part.” 

“ For the third and last time,” said the Prince ; 
“is it so?” 

“ It is so,” she said sharply, each little word like 
a pistol shot. 

“ And where will you go this time — to whom will 
you go, I should say if I were the brute you make 
me out to be?” 

“ Well, you have said it, you make the question 
no better by apologising for it. I will tell you ; I 
shall go to Mr. Richard Gordon Travers, he has 
taste and appreciation.” 

“ And money,” said the Prince with a sneer. 

“ Yes, he paid your winnings without a word.” 

“ Why should he not ? ” 

“ No reason that I know of, but you remarked 
that he had money.” 

“ I hope he is very rich,” said the Prince, tugging 
at his white moustache, and wrinkling his narrow 
forehead. 

“ Let me give you a parting declaration.” 

“ The very last ? ” he remarked, interrupting her 
with a scoffing smile. 

“ Yes, the very last.” 

“ Then I must bear it. ” 

“ You must ! If I had met this English gentle- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


19 


man before Fate had doomed me to you and Kher- 
asoff, if he had been the veriest miserable, I could 
have loved him — yes, loved him. You bought me, I 
own it ; bought and paid for me. But I would have 
given myself to this man, and been his slave; I 
would have worked for him, tended him in sickness 
and sorrow, would have been his abject, devoted, 
loving wife. Yes, take that home to your barren 
halls at Kherasoff ; you have never been a husband 
to me ; you do not know what it is to love or hate. 

I despise you ! ” 

She hissed these last words between her teeth, 
her eyes flashing Are. 

The Prince shrank from her for a moment ; then 
recovering himself said, with an effort at calmness, 
“ Thank you. Princess ; then it is farewell at last, 
not au revoir ? ” 

“ It is farewell,” she said, taking up her cloak 
and drawing a fur hood over her head. “ Farewell 
for ever ! ” 

And while the Princess, tom with passion and 
indignation, went straightway to the address which 
Travers had given her in case she needed a friend, 
the Prince, with the assistance of his body servant, 
packed his personal belongings for an immediate 
departure to St. Petersburg, en route for his gloomy 
palace at Kherasoff. 


20 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE SNOW FALLS, THE FIRE BURNS, 

“ Young, beautiful, disappointed, ill-used ; she was born with 
an infinite capacity for love and friendship. There was in her 
soul a well-spring of that holy spirit of self-sacrifice that gives 
inspiration to heroic natures. . . . Such women are not 

infrequently wrecked by ill-assorted unions and marriages of 
convenience. . . . You know not when Fate is at your 
elbow. It is not necessary to go forth into the wilds of Africa 
to seek him. He shadows you when you least suspect him. 
Beware of the day when you are most happy ! . . . The slavery 
of Passion is a bitter bondage, but the slavery of Love is holi- 
day. . . . The revenge of a woman scorned is as ‘a tiger’s 
spring,’ so saith the poet Byron, ‘deadly and quick and crush- 
ing.’ ” — Christopher Kenrick's Note Book. 

“ There are strange coincidences in life; they occur so Apro- 
pos that the strongest minds are impressed, and ask if that 
mysterious and inexorable fatality in which the ancients believed, 
is not really the law that governs the world.” — Alfred Mercier. 

“ I HOPE you like your rooms,” said Dick the next 
morning at breakfast. 

“ Very much,” said the Princess, smiling sweetly 
upon her host. 

“ Your maid is comfortable, too, I trust ? ” said 
Dick. 

“ Most comfortable,” was Madame’s reply, « and 
you ? ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF, 21 

“ Oh, I’m all right,” said Dick, taking a cup of 
coffee which Hellish handed to him. 

“ You have charming apartments ; better than the 
Prince’s at the Grand,” said Madame. 

“ Yes, a friend introduced me to this house oddly 
enough three years ago, and I found the same ac- 
commodating and agreeable hostess here on my 
return ; I telegraphed from Brindisi, and my Paris 
agents secured the place for me.” 

“ You are thoughtful for your comforts.” 

“ When I get back to civilisation, yes,” said Dick. 
“ Out yonder, in Africa, one has to rough it. AYon’t 
you take a little more chicken ? ” 

“ N'o, thank you. As you were saying, you ” 

“ Oh, about roughing it ; I can do that as well as 
any fellow ; and I can do the other thing ; the best 
is good enough for me.” 

« The best ! Of course,” she said, “ and for me, 
too.” 

“Hand Madame the peaches,” said Travers to 
Hellish, who was watchful, silent, and alert. 

Hellish handed to Madame a dish of peaches, the 
cost of which, in the summer, would be something not 
to be forgotten in Paris ; but in the winter, Dick’s 
breakfast-table, which was a picture of rare fruits 
and flowers, must have been an enormous item in 
his weekly bill; but he could afford it; and it 
amused him, after his scanty fare in the wilds of 
Africa, to heap luxury upon luxury and make feast- 
ing a function of importance. 

His rooms overlooked the Place Vendome. They 


22 the princess MAZABOFP 

were already decorated with many of his trophies 
of the chase and his relics of savage life, though the 
bulk of his collection had gone on, in many cases, 
to the Old Hall in Yorkshire. 

The eyes of the Princess wandered about the room, 
with its three tall windows and its successful at- 
tempt at a bright and luxurious fire. She noted all 
the evidences of wealth and power that the apart- 
ment seemed to suggest. Dick had been making 
purchases in Paris for English friends, and they 
were scattered about ; silver cups, trophies in gold, 
knives, dressing-cases, jewellery, curious cabinets, 
laces, and various other works of Parisian art. 

“ I have brought home for some of them skins and 
idols, knives, spears, elephants’ tusks, and what not ; 
but after all Paris has so many things that are use- 
ful and pretty that I want to supplement the African 
curios with a few really good things that Yorkshire 
will appreciate, even more perhaps than trifies it 
has taken me both time and trouble to get — not to 
mention an occasional risk of bullets and arrows ; 
Mellish and I have had some roughish times at what 
they call collecting, eh, Mellish ? ” 

“ Yes, excellency,” Mellish rephed. 

“ Look here, Mellish,” said Dick, “ you must begin 
to get out of this excellency business now ; all very 
well in the east ; all very well when you were in 
competition with those swell valets at Cairo, but Sir 
is good enough now and henceforth.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Mellish. 

“ And now you may have these things removed ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 23 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ And perhaps you will smoke a cigarette in the 
best parlour, as we shall call yonder little room over 
the porch way, eh, Princess ? ” 

“ By all means, very happy,” the Princess replied, 
taking the Englishman’s arm and thanking him with 
a pleasant smile. 

Whatever the readers may think of the Princess in 
other respects, let me assure them that it is not con- 
sidered indecorous, even in the best Russian society, 
for a lady to smoke. Indeed, in some Russian houses 
the ladies retire to smoke and chat as gentlemen do 
m England. 

It would, nevertheless, have appeared shockingly 
Bohemian, and worse, to some of Dick’s Yorkshire 
friends, if they could have seen him and the Princess 
smoking even the daintiest cigarettes in the best 
parlour, as he called the cosy place adjoining the 
principal apartment of his double suite of rooms ; it 
might better have been called a boudoir — so light 
and elegant the furniture, so soft and inviting the 
cushioned chairs and lounges. 

There was a fire burning on the hearth worthy of 
an English home ; and the Princess was very happy. 

“ What a kind fate it was that made us friends,” 
she said, looking at him through a delicate wreath 
of smoke. 

“ Fate has been good to me always I think,” said 
Dick sitting by her side, and taking her white hand 
in his great brawny fist. 


24 the princess mazaboff. 

“ You have deserved it,” she said, “ you have the 
most kind eyes, the most generous hand ” 

“ Ah, Princess, you overwhelm me ; my eyes are 
kind inasmuch as they reflect the light of your own, 
my hand generous through the touch of yours.” 

“Dear friend! you have seen many beautiful 
women in your travels, eh ? ” 

“ None that could compare with you. Princess.” 

“ Call me Anissia, will you not ? that is my bap- 
tismal name, and it will sound sweet as music on 
your lips.” 

“ Anissia ! ” Dick exclaimed, bending over to kiss 
her willing lips. 

“ And you will call me Dick, will you not ? My 
name is Richard ; my friends call me Dick, for short.” 

“ I will call you Deck, for love,” she said. “ Deek, 
how sweet it is, my love of loves ; all my life has 
been wasted until now.” 

Dick felt himself blush under the fervid glance of 
Anissia’s languishing eyes. It was something quite 
new to him to be made love to in this fashion ; and 
it was something new, too, for the Princess to be so 
carried away by her feelings. 

If it may be permitted to speak of the love of a 
woman for a man, who is not her husband, she being 
still a married woman, the Princess was perfectly 
sincere in her love for her English host. Her heart 
had never been touched until she met him. She 
had seen the world, had mixed in its gaieties, 
had met many of the best and bravest men in 
the best society on the continent, and in Russia j 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


25 


but it was the fate of Richard Travers to light that 
divine spark in the woman’s heart, that when it 
burns with reciprocal fires in the object loved, makes 
a paradise on earth, giving to human imagination a 
foretaste of the heaven that is beyond. 

It is possible that in these liberal days there are 
wise men and women, respectable men and women, 
belonging to learned societies in London, New York, 
and Boston, who would not hesitate to justify the 
love of the Princess Mazaroff, and the conduct of 
Richard Gordon Travers. It was not Anissia’s fault 
that she had not met Travers before she was 
betrothed to the Prince. As for Dick, he had no 
responsibilities to any other woman. He was not 
married, not even engaged ; he was a free man, a 
bachelor who had not yet met his affinity unless this 
was her, this princess of the red-gold hair and violet 
eyes ; and there are, no doubt, some of those wise and 
thoughtful ladies of the societies of Shelley and 
Browning, of Sorosis and Blavatsky, who would glory 
in the triumph of her beauty over the great strong 
unimaginative honest Englishman, who had braved 
the dangers of savage tribes, of river, and morass, of 
wild animals and deadly climates ; who had fought 
both wild beasts and wild men, had done battle 
with nature too in her wildest haunts, and had come 
out of the wilderness, the calm, modest fellow that 
he was, when without flag or banner, without troop 
or trumpet, he had entered upon his great march of 
discovery. 

Whatever the opinion of the wise men and women 


26 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


of these cultured days of Communism, Ibsenism, 
Shelleyism, and Theosophy, there was undoubtedly 
a deal of human nature in the loves of Anissia the 
Princess, and Travers the pioneer ; and one can hardly 
see how Travers at least could have avoided the 
situation in which he found himself on this winter 
day in Paris, when the snow falling without made 
“the best parlour” the very best place in the 
world, the warmest, the cosiest, and the most de- 
lightful. 

“ One day when you know me still better than 
you know me now,” said the Princess, “ shall I not 
get a divorce from Prince Mazaroff, and let us two 
be married indeed ; ah, do not speak, you only know 
me yet for my great love ; but you shall make your- 
self satisfy of my position, my career, my honour, 
my truth ; and for you I ask not one single question 
— I love you ; I place your foot upon my neck, I am 
your bondwoman, your serf, your slave.” 

She buried her face in his neck, and sobbed. 
Dick took her into his arms and swore to her his 
everlasting constancy. And he meant it at the 
moment. All his heart was in the declaration. 
Home, father, friends, sister, everything ; everybody 
were forgotten in that fond embrace. 

The snow fell without ; the white flakes passing 
the window looked like down from angelic wings. 
The wood Are upon the marble hearth made a pleas- 
ant splutter, and the atmosphere was full of the 
perfume of pine logs and roses. From the window 
the Napoleon column and all its surroundings were 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


27 


blocked out of view by the falling snow ; not that 
either the Princess or her lover had been concerned 
with the outer view, or with the falling snow ; they 
were as egotistical as the most youthful of lovers ; 
and they had no knowledge of the shadow that 
was growing up behind the sunshine of their happy 
vows of constancy. 

The shadow was there all the same. You cannot 
break the most ordinary laws of society and the 
world, the most commonplace laws of life without 
some after-payment, some unexpected but certain 
punishment. There are pleasures, many think, that 
are worth the payment which law and nature exact ; 
but you may not regulate your punishment; you 
may not compromise with fate ; you cannot devise 
nor measure the nature of the penalty. 

The Princess began her penance within a month 
of her new life of love. 

Travers grew restless. He must go home, he 
said, for a time. His father had returned. Very 
shortly his sister was to be married. His friends too 
had learnt of his arrival in Paris. The Princess 
hinted her desire to go with him ; but he had said 
immediately, “ I will return to you ; they would not 
understand you at present, my people; they are 
simple-minded folk with curiously straight-laced 
ideas ; my sister, for instance, found more horror in 
the reflection that I should see naked savages on 
my journey than in the notion that I might have to 
fight with them.” 

“Ah! she knew how the women would admire 


28 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOEF. 


you, and how easily you would vanquish the men,” 
said the Princess. 

Dick’s splendid physique, his noble stature, his 
courage, were the constant themes of the Princess, 
who associated with his manfulness all the great 
stories she had heard of the bravery of the English ; 
and she did not forget that she once heard a certain 
veteran of the Russian army who had fought in the 
Crimea, pay tribute to the splendour of English 
valour, of which to her mind Richard Travers was 
the very embodiment. 

A few days after the Princess had settled down 
with her maid, Estelle, in the rooms set apart for 
her in the Travers suite, this splendid physique and 
courage, which were the admiration of Anissia were 
put to a rough and vigorous test. 

Travers was in the habit of visiting at the Hotel 
Bristol a friend whom he had encountered during 
his travels, a sportsman like himself, and a man to 
whom the hard work of pioneering was a recreation 
and a pleasure. He lounged into the hotel after 
breakfast, in his brown velveteen jacket, to smoke 
a cigar and talk over the news of the day. The 
Princess had laughed at his careless mode of dress, 
but Dick said an old coat was like an old friend, it 
fitted your temper and your mood, and you were at 
home with it. Anissia allowed that he looked pictu- 
resque in it, and so he did. It was a kind of old- 
fashioned shooting coat, with many pockets, a trifie 
faded, but perfect in cut and fit. He wore with it 
a white silk neckerchief, tied in a sailor’s knot ; a 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFK 29 

pair of grey trousers, and untanned boots, and a 
brown felt hat. 

As he stood at the hotel door, smoking a cigar 
and chatting with his friend, a casual acquaintance, 
he looked the very picture of a well-bred English 
country gentleman ; his laugh was loud and frank, 
his teeth white and strong ; he wore a slight mous- 
tache, his hair was brown and closely cropped, 
and he was the very embodiment of health and 
strength. 

Suddenly, there was a great cry in the Rue Cas- 
tiglione, and the next moment a pair of horses, with 
a close carriage came dashing into the Place at a 
furious speed. A gendarme rushed at their heads 
and was trampled upon. The driver fell from the 
box as the wheels went over the prostrate officer, 
and the carriage rocked like a ship in a storm ; the 
horses flew onward, scattering sparks at every blow 
on the granite roadway. The lookers-on were 
paralysed : all of them except Travers, who, calmly 
dropping his cigar, flung himself upon the mad team. 
There was a sudden quick and desperate struggle, 
in which man and horses were for a moment a con- 
fused mass ; and the next, all three stood trembling 
in the midst of an excited crowd. 

From the carriage there stepped forth, pale and 
anxious, a white-headed gentleman and a young 
woman, his daughter. They were English. The 
coachman, having gathered himself together, and 
being only slightly hurt, came up as Travers was 
walking away. He pointed him out to the lady and 


30 the princess mazaroff. 

her father ; the lady ran forward to speak to their 
preserver. 

“ Oh, sir, pray accept our thanks, at least,” she 
said ; “you have probably saved our lives — at least, 
you risked your own.” 

“ Not at all, my dear young lady ; it was nothing, 
I assure you.” 

“But your hand is bleeding,” she exclaimed. 
“ Oh, papa, see, he is hurt ! ” 

“It is only a scratch,” said Dick, wrapping his 
handkerchief about his hand ; “ I assure you it is 
nothing ! ” 

“ My dear sir, we are deeply indebted to you.” 

“ That’s all right ; we are all English ; don’t let 
us make a fuss about it. I am used to horses, and 
I am not hurt, believe me.” 

The girl shrank back at his earnest protest against 
what he called a fuss, but her brown eyes rested ad- 
miringly upon his face, and he was proud of his 
countrywoman. She was tall, graceful, stately — 
not pretty, but distinguished. There was something 
more than beauty in the expression of her fair face, 
there was purity and truth. 

As Dick raised his hat and strode away, he felt 
the better for having seen her ; and somehow, while 
he related the incident to the Prmcess, who had 
heard of it from Mellish, a curious feeling of reserve 
came over him. He did not wish to describe his 
young countrywoman to the Princess ; it was as if 
he were introducing a sweet, pure, high-minded girl 
to questionable society. He was half angry with 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 31 

himself for the feeling, and he was glad to excuse 
himself from further questions. 

“ I must wash the dirt from my hands,” he said ; 
and then the Princess saw that he was hurt. 

“ Oh, mon Dieu ! ” she exclaimed, “ you bleed, 
you are hurt ! ” and as he reassured her and went 
to his room with Hellish, he found himself thinking 
of the difference between the two voices and the 
two women who had addressed him almost in the 
same words ; and there was a sweet, familiar, home- 
like music in the simple, pure English of the young 
girl with the brown eyes, the memory of which af- 
fected him almost to tears. But the truth was, his 
hand was badly lacerated, and strong and master- 
ful as he was, he felt faint and ill. 

“ Some brandy. Hellish,” he said, turning pale. 

“ Here it is,” said the watchfull Hellish. 

Travers took a deep draught, and sat down by 
his dressing-table. 

“ Hot water, the sponge, some lint,” he said. 

“Yes, sir, they are here.” 

“ Cut my sleeve off.” 

“Yes sir.” 

The coat was duly mutilated, and in a few minutes 
the wound was dressed and bandaged ; but Travers 
carried to his death a severe souvenir of his service to 
the fair young Englishwoman and her father, who 
left Paris the next morning, but not without desir- 
ing the director of their hotel if possible to find out 
the name of their compatriot that they might at 
least write to him from England a formal letter of 


32 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

gratitude. But they heard nothing from the hotel, 
and Travers did not seek to learn who the girl might 
be. He rather tried to forget her and the incident 
altogether ; while on the contrary she thought of it 
continually, and treasured the memory of his rather 
shy look, and his somewhat bashful protest that he 
had done nothing, and did not desire a fuss. 

Time wore on. The Princess began to feel that 
she was not so important a factor in Dick’s life as 
she desired to be. She pretended to be jealous, 
perhaps she was. Her love was exacting. She 
professed one day that she thought the attraction 
for Dick at the Hotel Bristol, was not his comrade 
but his comrade’s wife. This irritated Dick just 
a little ; the suspicion was so utterly unfounded. 
On another occasion, when he lingered with es- 
pecial fondness over a letter from his sister, the 
Princess playfully remarked that she was glad the 
billet doux from Mademoiselle of the pale face and 
the brown eyes, the heroine of the affair of the 
runaway horses, was so very chic and tender. Dick 
did not understand this kind of espionage, and he 
said so ; but these little shadows were soon dis- 
persed by the sunshine of Anissia’s affectionate 
penitence and deep regrets. The truth is the Prin-' 
cess felt in her heart that her hold upon her Eng- 
lish lover’ was not the firm, strong infiuence of a 
pure and righteous love ; and she bewailed her fate 
that it was not so, for she felt that it might have 
been ; she felt that she had been cheated out of 
her chance of esteem and honour ; and yet it might 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 33 

have been true, as she told Travers over and over 
again, that he could never again win a love such 
as hers, so absorbing, so self-denying, so constant, 
and so sincere. It would possibly have been better 
for the Princess had she been less fond. Dick hated 
what he called scenes, and he loved freedom. 

One day, towards the end of what she called her 
first month of happy days, the Princess, recount- 
ing some of the legends of her native Russia, had 
dwelt nervously upon a tale of love and vengeance 
which was a verified chapter of the local annals of 
Kherasoff . A woman had given up everything for 
a man ; she loved him with all a woman’s devotion ; 
he left her for another; she tracked him down 
in some distant land, and killed him and herself, 
leaving that other woman to mourn her lover, and 
even to be in danger of having to expiate his death. 

“ If you were to desert me, Deek,” she said, lay- 
ing her head upon his shoulder, and looking up into 
his genial face, “ I believe I could kill you.” 

“ Well, and you may if I do desert you,” he said, 
laughing ; but he was conscious, as he said so, of a 
chilly feeling in the region of his heart. 

« Do you know what is stronger than love ? ” she 
asked, still gazing into his face. 

“ No, my dear ; what is ? ” 

« Hate,” she said ; “ hate is stronger than love ! ” 

“And could you hate me?” he asked, stroking 
her hair, and stooping to kiss her eyelids. 

“ Yes, if I saw you doing to some other woman 

what you just then did to me.” 

3 


TBE PmUfCESS mazaroff. 


u 

“You will never see that, my dear.” 

“ I could almost hate you if I suspected it,” she 
went on, with a strange persistency. 

“ But, my dear, why do you think of such things ? 
What is the matter ? ” 

“ Don’t you think that outraged woman who killed 
them both had the right of justice with her. Was 
it not a righteous revenge ? ” 

“ It was a very cruel one,” said Dick. 

“ It is your sister who is to be married, eh ? ” 
asked the Princess, without noticing his remark. 

“ My sister, yes ; why do you ask ? ” 

“You seem so much interested; I never had a 
sister; I never had a brother; so I do not know 
what it is to love a sister or a brother ; and your 
eyes flash when you speak of your sister or your 
father.” 

“ I love them, Anissia, and I have not seen them 
— think of it — for close upon three years ; think of 
it, and you will understand that I must leave you 
for a little while.” 

“Yes,” she said mournfully, withdrawing her 
eyes, and seating herself by the fire ; “ Yes, you 
must ; oh, but I do not like a parting when one 
loves ! Who can tell when we meet again ! I want 
a gift from you.” 

“Name it; the world does not contain anything 
I would not give you.” 

“ Oh, it is not much ; you have given me your 
love, what more can I ask ? It is that knife with 
your name engraven upon it, that knife which 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 35 

saved your life in that jungle fight with the 
Wanyema.” 

“ It is a strange gift,” said Dick. 

“ If you do not come back to me, when you say, 
if you are not true to me, I will kill myself with 
that knife ; so you may know, dear friend, that if 
you wish to be rid of me, I shall not stand in your 
way ; I shall know how to die.” 

“It makes me miserable to hear you talk like 
this ; you are not well.” 

“ Will you give me that knife, dear one ? ” 

- “ Give it you, yes, since you ask it ; but promise 
me you will not unsheath it until we meet again.” 

She hesitated, and he kissed her fervently, with 
fresh expressions of love and with an urgent repeti- 
tion of his request that she would make the prom- 
ise he desired. 

“Yes, I promise,” she said, taking from him the 
knife in its heavy leathern sheath. 

“ A very ugly gift for a lady,” he said, “ like its 
master ; do you know, Anissia, at college they used 
to call me ugly Travers. They did, really. And I 
was a cub, you bet, as my Yankee friends say.” 

“ Ugly I they were barbarians ; nor is anything 
ugly you ever touched or wore ; it is made ideal. 
Oh, mon ami^ you will always love me ? ” 

“Always, indeed,” said Dick; who did not dis- 
guise from himself, when he presently retired to his 
own room to write some letters, that she had rather 
bored him of late with her doubts and fears, and 
her everlasting demands of vows and assurances of 


36 the princess mazaroff. 

his love. Now that he began to think of home and 
friends he found his interest drifting very much 
away from Paris, and his love for the Princess, 
somehow, only a part of his sojourn in the gay city. 
He began to wish she loved him less or disguised 
it more. It was rather a bother to have a woman 
perpetually calculating what she should do if he 
deserted her. She was not his wife ; there was no 
particular moral claim upon him to go on spooning 
and love-making. For a moment he almost wished 
that he had never seen her ; and yet when he re- 
called the dream-like time he had had in her society, 
the something like paradise that she had made of 
his stay in Paris, he was inclined to upbraid him- 
self for ingratitude. 

“You are thinking of me,” said a soft voice at his 
elbow, “ I know it by my heart beating fast. You 
are wondering if you still love me, or if it is not all 
a dream ; is it not so ? ” 

“ I was thinking of you,” Dick replied ; wheeling 
his chair from the writing-table and facing her. 

“ And you are writing to tell your sister you are 
coming ? ” 

“ Yes, dearest ; I was telling her of the train that 
I hoped to catch and the time it would land me 
at York, where they are to meet me with the 
carriage.” 

“And you will come back to me in one month? ” 

“Yes, in four weeks, perhaps earlier; and. Prin- 
cess, I want to ask you a favour.” 

“ You call me Princess ; why ? ” 


THE BiilNCESS MAZAROFF. 37 

“Anissia, then, don’t be unkind; I called you 
Princess in connection with the thought I had about 
you.” 

“ Yes, it was a kind thought, I am sure. I see 
it m your eyes — hear it in your voice.” 

“ You will not be offended at what I am going to 
say, will you ? ” 

“ No, dear.” 

“ You will not want to unsheath that ugly knife 
and kill me,” he said, taking lier face between his 
great hands and kissing it. 

“ Ah, you laugh at me ! ” she said, kissing him in 
return. 

“No, truly, I do not laugh : and if I do it would 
only be to make you feel cheerful, and to let you 
see that you need not fear I shall not come back to 
the day, to the minute ; how do you think I am 
going to stay away from you ? How do you think 
I am going to live without you ? ” 

“ I do not think you are gomg to live without me,” 
she said, just a trifle grimly considering his pro- 
testations ; “ but what is the favour you ask ? ” 

“‘ We have never spoken of money, you and I,” 
he said ; “ but there is no getting along without it, 
is there ? And, now don’t frown, as I shall be away 
for a whole month, I want to say that I have opened 
an account at the Paris bank in your name, and that 
this little parcel directed to you contains a cheque 
book.” 

“ That is thoughtful, dear, and I like you for it — 
love takes account of such things ; 1 do not need it. 


38 the PlilNCESS MAZaKOITF. 

but I accept it as you give it ; and it shall open when 
you return, to make festival in honour of that 
happy day. Will that please you ? ” 

“ Spoken like the noble woman you are ; and now, 
Anissia, trust me, will you not ? ” 

“ I will,” she said ; “ no more tears, no more ques- 
tions, no more doubts ; you are mine, I am yours ; I 
trust you with my life and soul ! ” 


THE PMINCEiSiS MAZAliOFF. 


39 


CHAPTER III. 

“A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS.” 

“ She sat alone and waited, nursing her hopes and fears. 
Chance had led her into an unlooked-for world of bliss. Fate 
was jealous of her happiness. Already dark clouds were gath- 
ering about the sun, and Love cowered, fearful of the storm. 

mistook passion for love; and bonds which at first 
were silver, soft and pleasant to the touch, became as iron 
chains that galled the flesh .” — The Keepsake. 

And so they went their several ways to perdition ; 
for it could not be that there was any hope in the 
future for a husband so careless of his wife’s honour 
as the Prince Mazaroff had shown himself to be ; nor 
for a wife so regardless of name and fame as the 
Princess ; nor for an honest Yorkshire gentleman, 
who could make love to another man’s wife, and 
receive her as his guest. 

Such, at all events, must be the conclusion of the 
virtuous and honourable reader ; and the historian 
of these adventures is bound to admit that the out- 
look is not without suggestions of toil and trouble. 
Have we not, indeed, already felt the shadow that 
has fallen on the high spirits of the Princess her- 
self? 


40 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


Truth to tell, the Princess Mazaroff was in love, 
for the first time. She had lived in an atmosphere 
of social freedom that had lulled her appreciation 
and understanding of wha€ is right and wrong, 
where the promptings of the senses are concerned. 

If one wanted an instance of the infiuence of 
heredity, the case of the Princess Mazarofl; might 
easily be quoted. 

The author of “ Marriage and Heredity ” is careful 
to explain that no fixed laws of morality or virtue 
are to be found in human nature. Habits and cir- 
cumstances are the basis of morality. What is 
regarded as right in the East, is not necessarily 
right in the West. Even neighbouring countries 
like France and England, set up different standards 
of propriety ; but all nations agree that the traitor 
who, especially in war-time, leaves his own country to 
betray it to the enemy, is a villain of the deepest 
dye ; and such was Anissia’s father, who during the 
Crimean campaign did this for Russia. Her mother 
was a native Russian of decent family, whose dowry 
came from the Governor of the Province. 

From her father, Anissia received the best part of 
her education, more particularly in languages. Her 
beauty must have been transmitted with her red- 
gold hair, her deep violet eyes, and her delicate yet 
fine physique. She possessed the beauty of some 
great ancestress, her mother’s capacity for love, her 
father’s crooked courage ; she was a strange mixture 
of good and evil, of passion and devotion ; and it was 
an ill day for her, and an ill day for him, when she 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 41 

met Richard Gordon Travers — or as she now called 
him, in her pretty broken English, Deek ! 

The only one of the trio who did not worry him- 
self about what had happened was the Prince ; but 
he had so few years to stay in this world, that he 
had become philosophically selfish, and had deter- 
mined to take things easy. 

If Anissia had been guided more by her head than 
her heart, she would have laughed when Deek left 
her, instead of crying, in spite of her declaration that 
there should be no more tears, no more questions, 
and no more doubts. Her maid could do nothmg 
with her. She would not be comforted ; she would 
not go out. Opera, theatre, ball, nothing had any 
more attraction for her. The things she had loved, 
she loved no more. She would not even dress her- 
self ; she lay upon her couch and moaned : her eyes 
were almost as red as her hair ; her face as pale as 
her white silk dressing-gown. 

“Madame,” exclaimed the maid, “you will kill 
yourself.” 

“ Let me, let me,” she replied. 

“ But why ? ” 

“ I shall never see my love again ; never.” 

“ Oh, yes, in a month,” said the maid, smoothing 
her hair. 

“ Never, I feel it in my heart ; oh, if we had never 
met ! ” 

“ Then perhaps you would never have loved, dear 
Princess, and at least you have been happy.” 

“Yes, too happy; but only for one short hour, as 


42 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


it seems, and not rightly happy, Estelle ; and some- 
thing of that it was he said, I could not understand, 
only feel. Oh, I am most wretched.” 

“ But you will be better soon ; it is cold, and there 
is snow, and that makes you sad.” 

“ The snow falls upon my heart, Estelle, like a 
grave, as if it would bury my love and leave me 
widowed indeed, desolate, lost ! ” 

“ My dear, sweet madame, I have never seen you 
so triste, you make me cry; what shall I do for 
you ? ” 

“ Leave me alone, Estelle, with my grief. Do not 
weep, it is only I who should weep.” 

“ But why ? he will come again ; he says so ; I 
hear him ; and to me he said, ‘ We shall meet 
again.’ ” 

“ Ah, yes ; but there is something when one loves 
for the first time, Estelle, that gives a woman a 
second sight ; she reads in the future ; she knows by 
the tone of the voice, the turn of the hand, the 
glance of the eye, whether all her love is returned. 
Why could I not have travelled with him ? His 
kindred would not have cared for me. No, he did 
not say so, but he thought like that ; and they are 
severe in their marriage laws, the English, and their 
women are statues of virtue ; and oh, Estelle, my 
heart will break ! ” 

Estelle kneeled by the side of the couch and 
rocked the Princess as if she had been a child, 
rocked her and cooed to her, sung snatches of songs, 
and patted her wet cheeks, and murmured sweet, 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


43 


reassuring words. Presently, all of a sudden, and 
with passion, the Princess rose to her feet. 

“But if he should desert me, let him pray to 
Heaven. I will show him no mercy ; I told him hate 
is stronger than love ; if we women are constant in 
love, what are we in hate? Estelle, hold me, I 
think I am going mad ! ” 

Estelle twined her arms about the trembling 
limbs of the beautiful woman — picturesque in her 

distress, unconsciously artistic in every movement 

and led her to her chamber. 

Dick Travers breathed a deep sigh of relief when 
he was fairly settled in his special coupe for Calais. 
He did not trouble the faithful Mellish to minister 
to him as Estelle had been called upon to minister 
to the Princess. 

Mellish sat calmly in the adjoining compartment, 
but he was thinking of what he called “ the rum 
go” in which his master had been engaged. 

Men and women were more or less “ rummuns ” to 
Mellish, and life generally was “a rum go.” He 
took things very quietly, all the same. His coolness 
under fire in the bush on one memorable occasion 
had obtained for him a reputation for courage ; yet 
after all, his seeming stoicism and pluck were 
nothing more than a matter of habit. Mellish had 
come of an old family of retainers. The acme of 
perfect service is quiet. The Mellish family had 
been trained in this belief. They had an aptitude 
for service ; and Dick’s servant, Ephraim Mellish, 
the descendant of the Mellishes of plush and butler 


44 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


renown in Yorkshire, was worthy of the best tradi- 
tions of his race. 

“I wonder what Mellish thinks of it all,” said 
Dick to himself, as the train began to steadily beat 
the iron rails on its way to Calais ; “ I would like to 
know. He’ll say nothing but what is wise and dis- 
creet, I know that ; but I wonder what he thinks. 
Am I in his opinion a devil of a fellow or an utter 
bad lot ; a knowing one, or a fool ? Of course he is 
of opinion that the Princess is a ‘ rummun’ ; perhaps 
he thinks she is not a Princess at all.” 

Knowing how little Mellish would say even if he 
asked him questions, and really regardless of Mel- 
lish’s opinions about anything, it was odd that 
Travers should trouble himself as to what Mellish 
thought of his doings in Paris ; and it said a great 
deal for Anissia’s forebodings that Dick’s thoughts 
should be running in such a trivial direction — the 
possible opinions of Mellish in regard to their happy 
time and the future that he had promised her. 

By-and-by Dick drew from his coat a pocket-book 
containing several letters which he had not yet 
opened. One was from his sister, another from an 
old college chum, his one dear, close, intimate friend, 
John Tremont — The Rev. John Tremont — who had 
carried off the highest honours at Oxford, while 
Dick had literally done nothing but establish a 
reputation for being a jolly good fellow, and the 
best and bravest of athletes. 

“ Let’s see what my sister says first,” he said to 
himself, bending over her letter. “ Welcomes me 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


45 


home, of course ; the Old Hall opens its arms to me ; 
father has just returned from Norway, sends his 
best love, and is impatient for my coming. 

“ The dear old chap,” Dick exclaimed, laying the 
letter aside for several minutes and looking medita- 
tively at the flying landscape. 

Then continuing the letter he went on reading, 
“ You will hardly know the place, so many improve- 
ments have been made, but your rooms are just the 
same ; father would not have them touched, except 
to have them cleaned up and all that. It has been 
hinted that father can have a peerage if he desires 
it, and that is one of the many things he wants to 
talk to you about ; he would not, as you know, dear 
Dick, have accepted the baronetage, only that he 
desired to leave a title for you when he is gone, 
which we hope will be never, though I suppose we 
are all mortal after all. How often we have all 
prayed for your safe return, dear Dick ; and how 
often we have been afraid something serious had hap- 
pened to you ; we indeed had presentiments about 
you once or twice. You approve of Howartli Selby, 
whom I am going to marry, do you not ? I am sure 
you do.” 

“Well, I don’t know,” said Dick again, looking 
meditatively through the carriage window. “ How- 
warth Selby ! Three years seems an eternity when 
you want to remember a fellow you don’t know 
much about, and don’t care much about. The Sel- 
bys of Leek ; first-rate family ; oh, yes, he’s all right ; 
I remember him in the Yorkshire Eleven when they 


46 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


beat the Middlesex fellows at Lord’s ; oh, yes, he’ll do. 
Besides, you would not be likely to love a chap who 
was not all he should be, sister Gertie I But where is 
the fellow who is all he ought to be, eh ? W ell, well ; 
we have to take the world as we find it. What’s the 
next news, Gertie ? Oh, the tenants are going to turn 
out to welcome me ! I wish they wouldn’t. Shall 
have to make a speech. What shall I say ? By Jove, 
what a lot I could say if I only knew how ! ” 

Once more the landscape became very interestmg 
to Dick Travers, and many of the incidents of the 
past three years passed before his mind, gradually 
leading up to the final picture of his long absence 
from home — the Princess drying her tears and saying 
“ Au revoir.” “ Poor Princess ! ” he said with a sigh ; 
and then folding up his sister’s letter and replacing 
it in his pocket-book, he opened that from Charlton- 
Cleeve, in Worcestershire, and read as follows : — 

“ My Dear Dick. How happy your father and 
sister must be at your safe return ; I think I know 
how happy by my own feelings. I wish I could go 
and help them to receive you at the Old Hall, but I 
am tied here by duty and habit, by work and books, 
and by many other things. My heart will be with 
you all the same, you know that, old friend. 

“ It is strange that our paths in life should have 
been so divergent, yours leading all over the world, 
mine bounded almost by the frontiers of this little 
parish in a very interesting county ; and I have a 
great world in my library, a world which is never 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 47 

fully explored, a world full of friends who are always 
amiable and true. 

“ I never forget our old days at College, nor our 
pleasant vacation in Yorkshire, and I feel to-day as 
freshly as ever the aJffection I have for you, dear old 
chap, and my admiration for your character ; and 
now that you are the world’s hero as well as mine, 
I am as proud of you as I was when you rescued 
Harry Meadows from drowning and thrashed that 
insolent bargee at Mortlake after the boat-race. Al- 
though you called me the Don because I happened to 
have a better memory for Latin than was vouchsafed 
to you, aijd although I have become a bookworm and 
to a certain extent turned my back upon the world 
the old love is still alive, and it would be active, 
dear Dick, just the same, whatever might have been 
your career or my own. 

“ Could you not come and spend a week or two 
here ? It would give me the greatest happiness to 
have you as my guest at the Manor House ; you 
would like the old place, I know, and I can give you 
both shooting and fishing, even now, in this wintry 
weather. Better still, I can assure you pleasant 
society. My best friends here are Mr. Grafton Som- 
ers and his sister, and I must not forget his daugh- 
ter Evelyn, one of the most charming of clever girls, 
combining with Girtonian knowledge such common 
sense and generous views of life as you would, I am 
sure, heartily appreciate. The Somers already 
know a great deal about you from your old College 
chum, who looks forward to the pleasure of a 


48 


TBE PEINCESS MAZAROFF. 


long personal account of your African adventures. 

“ Write to me from home, dear Dick, and let me 
know what your movements are ; and always believe 
me your affectionate and true friend, 

“ John Tremont.” 

« Believe it ! yes, by Jove, I know you are always 
my dear old true kind friend, and I yours twenty- 
fold,” said Dick, placing the letter in his pocket- 
book'and wiping his eyes. “ Jack Tremont, you are 
the best fellow in the world, and the cleverest and 
the bravest. It’s nothing to be brave with your 
body, nothing to be brave with a pair of big fists 
and strong muscles, but it is something to be brave 
in your mind, to be brave in your thoughts, to be 
broad and big in your opinions, and not to care a hang. 
The bigots and the narrow-minded of Oxford, old 
chap, they knew how brave you were, and how 
strong ; the good fellows and the learned they knew 
also ; by Jove ! how you hit ’em in debate ! You 
might have been Prime Minister in time, and yet 
you chose to go home to that old living and that old 
Manor House and succeed your father, and live with 
your books and your thoughts, and lounge quietly 
through life as if you knew as little Latin as I do, 
and were a failure, rather than one of the biggest of 
Oxford’s successes. Well, perhaps you know best. 
Jack ; you have your compensations, I suppose. I 
wonder what you would have said to the Princess if 
she had walked into your chambers. Would you 
have given her the excuse I gave her ? ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 49 

Time and tide went on, boat and train, and Dick 
Travers sped farther away in fact and thought from 
the Princess Mazaroff, who felt the hours fall like 
lead upon her heart. 

At night at the Travellers’ Club in London; a 
night of feasting and chat, then a day flying north- 
wards, and in the evening shouts of welcome ringing 
through the hall of his fathers, the fires burning the 
brighter for the crisp air without. It was a frosty 
night, the dark blue heavens thick with stars, the 
oaks and elms and sweeping birches white with 
frost ; the Travers’ tenants crowding the spacious 
entrance hall and shaking hands with the son and 
heir ; Sir Gordon, the hale and hearty father, proudly 
repressing his tears of joy ; sister Gertie laughing 
and weeping: Howarth Selby, her lover, looking 
sheepish and feeling “ a little out of it ” ; what a 
happy home-coming it was ! 

But when it was all over, when the fatted calf 
had been eaten, the healths drunk, the last toast 
proposed, and the last prayer of thankfulness uttered 
by father and sister for their dear one’s return, 
somehow Dick did not feel quite happy. Of the 
three whose destinies had suddenly run together on 
board the P. and O. steamer, the Prince, in his 
mouldy palace at Kherasoff, was the only one who 
slept soundly. He did not care, he had no feelings, 
he had no pride, he had no heart. Dick tried to 
think he did not care also, but he did care ; he had 
a heart, and it is perhaps a pity he did not act upon 
its dictates, which were kindly ; but his heart was 
4 


50 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


not strong enough to govern his head, and if it had 
there might have been a tragedy in this story all 
the same — who knows ? But the Princess gave her- 
self up entirely to the heart she had only recently 
discovered — a heart that under fortunate and benign 
circumstances might have been a boon to herself 
and a blessing to some masterly if loving com- 
panion. Who knows ? 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


51 


CHAPTER IV. 

WATCHING AND WAITING. 

“ We came crying hither. 

Thou know’st the first time that we smelt the air 
We wawl and cry. — 

When we are born, we cry, that we are come 
To this great stage of fools.” — Shakespeare. 

The snow had gone, the air was frosty, but the skies 
were blue. Paris indeed began to give token of the 
possibilities of spring. It is true January was only 
just going out and February looking over the winter 
fence. For all that it was sunny weather. The 
cold was dry. There were-flowers in the windows 
and in the streets. The Princess felt these genial 
influences in her poor little heart, and a great hope 
fluttered there. 

“ The day has come,” she said to Estelle ; “the 
one month is over at last; has the housekeeper 
prepared his room ? ” 

“Yes, madame^ and the concierge has warning of 
his desired approach.” 

There were no other rooms let off in the house 
except those which Travers, the Princess, and the 
owner occupied, but the establishment had never- 


52 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


theless its concierges — man and wife — with their 
two little rooms inside the gates of the old mansion ; 
in the upper regions of which resided the owner, 
who kept himself free from the knowledge and rec- 
ognition of the lodgers who honoured his chambers 
and enabled him to invest in rentes and dine twice 
a week at the most celebrated of restaurants. 

The Princess had but once or twice left her rooms, 
and then only for a drive in a close carriage, since 
she parted with her lover. She was desperately and 
everlastingly in love, and she took no account of her 
title or otherwise to a sincere return of her passion. 
She only knew that she had never loved before ; 
she only judged of her position from her experiences 
of the society to which she had been accustomed in 
St. Petersburg and Paris. She had no rules of life 
to guide her. What she knew of her father was 
not calculated to inspire respect or admiration. Her 
mother probably died of a broken heart. She only 
remembered her as a soft, tender, kind-hearted, 
plump, sweet- voiced woman, with deep blue eyes 
and golden hair, a woman somewhat tearful in her 
embraces of her child ; and while she did not quite 
understand what had happened when this good 
mother died and her place was empty, she had a full 
appreciation of her father’s death, which occurred 
during a quarrel with the police of St. Petersburg 
soon after he had sold her to the Prince Mazaroff ; 
she had not shed one tear at the recital of his violent 
ending. 

“ Ah, I have had a sad life, Estelle,” she said toast- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 63 

ing her slippered feet at the fire ; “ a life of sorrow 
until I saw Monsieur Deek. Do you remember 
when we first spoke to each other that summer 
night at sea ? ” 

“ Yes, madame, and I was rejoiced to see you so 
merry, you had been so triste^ and the Prince so 
much of the bear.” 

“ Estelle, am I a wicked woman ? ” 

“ You ! Oh, your highness, what a thought 
You wicked ! ” 

“ You are good, Estelle ; you go to mass ; you 
pray always ; I am not ; do you pray for me ? ” 

“ Always, Princess, and I have acquainted the 
reverend Father how good you are, what you do 
for the poor, how generous your nature.” 

“ I wish I was worthy of all your praise and pray- 
ers, Estelle, and yet I do not think I am bad; if 
the Prince had been kind to me, if he had treated 
me as well as his dogs I would have been his faith- 
ful wife. I think, even now, if he had said, ‘ An- 
issia, do not leave me, I love you,’ I would not have 
gone away, much as I loved Mistaire Travers, my 
dear Deek ! There was, Estelle, more in what he 
did not say than in what he said that made me 
love him, and to love him seemed to me to be good. 
But the Prince, he scoffed me, he snarled like the 
wolf, he despised me ; and the devil was in my 
heart, the devil and my new love, and they strug- 
gled together, and I came here to my paradise, my 
new world : oh, Estelle, if after all he do not love 
me’” 


54 the princess mazaboff. 

« It is to wrong him that you have such a thought, 
madame,” said Estelle, who was sitting a short 
distance from her mistress busily engaged in some 
needlework ; she was a bright-eyed, neat, watchful 
little woman, with a thin, pointed face, and long 
fingers that made quick work of her knitting. 

The Princess did not turn to her as she spoke, 
but looked into the fire, and sometimes seemed to 
be addressing herself. 

“ I never thought I was not a good woman until 
my love went away. When he was here I did not 
think. When the Prince scoffed and snarled, and 
I remember all the sweet things Peek say to me on 
the ship with the moon embracing us, I only think 
I go to him straightway ; he loves me, he has said 
so ; but a little before the time when he go away 
to see his father and his sister and his friends, it 
come to me to think of myself, and to think if we 
could be married, and to remember that one day 
driving with him the Countess de Grammont, she 
make no attention to my salute, she give me the go- 
by, and I see what was perhaps a flush of shame 
come into the face of Peek, for he see the intended 
slight, and I wonder afterwards if that lose me his 
respect.” 

“Oh, madame, you have thought too curiously 
of that, and since you have been alone and would 
not go out, and refuse yourself to every caller, your 
mind has troubled itself with many thoughts that 
are like the shadows of the winter. Oh, hark, 
madame, there is a carriage at the door ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


55 


Estelle ran to the window, and the Princess rose 
to her feet, her hand upon her heart. She was 
very pale now, her eyes were shrunken, her lips 
had a softer expression than heretofore, and she 
looked anxiously towards Estelle, who, after a mo- 
ment or two, with a little shiver of disappointment, 
returned to her knitting. 

“ I did not expect him so early in the day, Estelle,” 
said the Princess, taking her seat once more by the 
fire, and hiding her tears from the maid, who how- 
ever, noticed them in the tone of her voice. 

“ Ko, the train is not due for arrival yet, I think, 
and there are so many delays of tickets and the 
officials.” 

‘‘Yes,” said the Princess with a sigh, “I some- 
times think it would have been better we had never 
met, Estelle ; men are less true than women ; for 
them the world has many conquests ; and do not 
these English lords of the earth make their way on 
their march about the globe with gold, is it not 
so?” 

“ They are very rich and strong, and masterful ; 
but their word is as gold, it keeps it as a bond ; and 
this milord Travers he was surely amiable and en- 
gaging, and he devoured you with his eyes, and 
I would trust him above all the world.” 

“ Estelle, you love me, I know it by the sound of 
your voice when you praise him, the tone of verity, 
but I know it is also to give me pleasure ; yes, yes, 
do not say no, and it does give me delight ; and if 
I thought it were not true I should go mad, or 


56 the princess mazaroff. 

freeze in every vein, and become as Medea or Cly- 
temnestra, or worse.” 

“I never heard of them, Princess; but there is a 
proverb I know, ‘ Much love, much hate’ ; but I do 
not believe it is so ; where love is, or where love 
has been, there can be no place for hate.” 

“Do you remember the woman who killed her 
rival, and laid the murder at the door of a false lord 
at Moscow, five years ago?” asked the Princess, 
turning about for a moment and facing Estelle. 

“ He was executed, and then she confessed ? ” 
replied the maid, in a matter-of-fact way. 

“Yes; and she had loved him with a love that 
had borne all things but the insult he put upon her 
through a mistress. Love, Estelle, is a sort of mad- 
ness ; but it is capable of the divinest sacrifice ; do 
you think there is any martyrdom I could not 
undergo for love ? ” 

“ Oh, my dear madame ! ” exclaimed Estelle, lay- 
ing down her knitting and kneeling by her side, 
“ do not give up your soul to such forebodings of 
unhappmess ; you will be ill again, and I shall have 
to ask the concierge to bring the physician ; be 
calm, dear, sweet Princess, your eyes are wet with 
tears, your lips are blue ; dear love, think of your 
appearance then ; he may be here any minute, and 
you would not receive him thus, is it not so ? ” 

“ You are right, Estelle, that is true, I make 
myself too sad, and all without a cause ; I am ill, 
little sister, my heart is heavy, my soul is full of 
fears, but I will try to be more cheerful.” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 57 

“Yes, yes, that is well said; come first and lie 
down awhile,” the maid replied, leading the Princess 
towards her chamber. “ Yes, indeed, dear madam e, 
you must, dear love ; there, that is well, you come 
to your room and I will bring you a little wine or a 
little soup ; you have eaten nothing to-day.” 

“ To-night I will : there is to be a feast, you know, 
Estelle.” 

“Yes, dear Princess, sweet madame, I have given 
the orders that you wished ; but you must rest ; and 
I shall play to you those sweet melodies you find 
solace in ; yes, yes.” 

She led the Princess, all pale and trembling, to her 
room, and induced her to lie down, and talked to 
her while she drank a little wine ; and then, sitting 
down to a small upright piano of inlaid satin-wood 
which Dick had bought for his idol, Estelle soothed 
the Princess with reassuring words that breathed 
and spoke through Estelle’s pleasant impromptu 
chords and single speech- like notes. And once now 
and then there were faint hints of melodies of the 
crooning days of childhood and bits of Muscovite 
song all weird and sad, followed by reminiscences 
of Gascon ballads and Roumanian melody ; and such 
a polyglot of musical thought and fancy that be- 
tokened not only skill of execution and tasteful 
memories, but a heart of tender fibre and a soul that 
knew nought of treasons, stratagems, and spoils, a 
soul to be trusted, a heart to be desired. 

And by-and-by, through the lulling sounds of 
melodious harmony, the Princess slept and dreamed. 


58 the princess mazaroff. 

If she had had a sweet and blessed childhood of 
which to dream, she' would surely have dreamt of 
that, since it seemed that fate had smiled upon her 
in her sleep. Crushed with fatigue, and worn out 
with hopes that were not destined to be fulfilled, 
she dreamed of the ocean ship purling softly through 
the lapping Mediterranean waves. The beat of the 
throbbing cylinders marked time with her own heart 
as she listened to the strange tales of distant lands 
that a pleasant, manly voice poured into her willing 
and delighted ears. He told her of dusky people 
living wild lives of love and war in forest lands ; of 
jungle flowers and strange untamed beasts ; ^ of 
dwarfs with tiny wives ; of birds of curious shape 
and wing ; of mountains capped with snow sunning 
themselves in blue lakes half hid in leafy valleys ; 
and when the moon was high in the heavens and 
only the swish swish of the ship and the beat beat 
of the never-tiring engines could be heard, she 
returned the pressure of his hand, and prayed the 
ship might sail on for ever. 

All the same, the day was over at last. The night 
came and there was no feast, not for the Princess at 
least, but for Dick life just then was one continual 
feast ; so merry, so jubilant, that he had only paused 
once now and then to think of Paris and the Princess ; 
and when he had thought of either one or the other, 
there had risen up in his memory the sweet pure 
face and the soft brown eyes of his girlish country- 
woman, who had insisted upon exaggerating a simple 
service into an act of heroism and danger, . 


THE PttmCESS MAZAUOFF. 


59 


But at night, that very night when the Princess 
had expected him back again in Paris, it had sud- 
denly occurred to him that the end of the month of 
absence had come. He wished that without an effort 
he could look in upon the Princess and console her. 
Then some passing renewal of the feelmg which had 
first moved him to address her in his blandest accents 
returned to him, and his pulse beat a point or two 
more rapidly, only, however, to become normal in as 
brief a time. 

“ I suppose I ought to do something, write to her, 
telegraph, or perhaps send Mellish over with mes- 
sages of delay and some trinket for remembrance. 
By Jove, if I had thought she would have left the 
Prince I think I would have called upon my judg- 
ment to take care of my heart, or what a fellow 
calls his heart. But how the deuce was a man to 
be responsible for his actions after living outside the 
pale of civilisation for three years ? and, by Jove, 
how lovely she was ! And is ! I sometimes think 
if I had never seen that English face I would have 
gone on being that other woman’s slave ; I used to 
love to hear her broken English, her taking little 
foreign accent ; and then when I heard that English 
girl’s clear pure voice, her simple language unre- 
strained, and as our best girls speak it down here in 
Yorkshire and up there in town, by Jove something 
seemed to snap in what I please to call my mind, 
and Anissia was never the same again. Well, I 
don’t know what to do ? I have been a confounded 
fool. The wonder is that the Prince did not call me 


60 


TRE PRINCESS MAZAROFF, 


out. I think I would have liked the Princess all 
the better if he had. I got her too easily. It’s true 
I was persevering on the boat, and ought to have 
been kicked by every honest man aboard ; but, 
great heavens, you could have knocked me down 
with a feather when she walked in that night and 
said she had come ! And great heavens, did any- 
body ever see such a picture ! Was she got up for 
the occasion? No, hang it, Dick, don’t be so heart- 
less ! What’s come over you ? I have a good mind 
to run over to Paris and see the little woman ! ” 

“ Father,” he said, next morning at breakfast, “ I 
must run over to Paris. I will only be away a 
week.” 

Then turning to his sister he said, “ You won’t 
mind, Gerty, will you ? ” 

“ If you must go, of course you must,” said Gerty, 
a bright little Yorkshire lass of twenty, fresh in 
complexion and manner, with merry eyes, a frank, 
generous mouth with white teeth, that made her 
laugh pleasant to see as well as to hear, and which 
bewildered and delighted her reticent lover, Howarth 
Selby. He would stand by her side speechless, but 
at the same time giving evidence of internal emotion 
that would start friends off into fresh laughter after 
they had paid full tribute to the infectious character 
of Gerty’s mirth. 

“Yes, I suppose you won’t miss me, Gerty,” said 
Dick ; “ Selby is all in all to you, eh ? ” 

“ Oh, no, he is not, but he is a very good fellow, is 
he not, father?” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 61 

Oh, Selby will pass muster,” replied Sir Richard, 
smiling. 

“ More ; he is clever and he is wise, though Dick 
does not think so ; he has plenty of clever ideas, hut 
he does not talk of them.” 

“No, indeed he does not,” said Dick laughing. 

“ You thmk he is a fool, brother,” said Gerty, with 
a pretty little frown. 

“No, I do not,” said Dick; “the young fellow 
who has won the good opinion of Gerty Travers 
is no fool.” 

“ Thank you ; but that is not the only wise thing 
he has done, let me tell you.” 

“ No,” said Dick, laughing and nodding at his 
father, as much as to say, this is good fun, is it not ? 
“ he has made Gerty believe he is clever.” 

“ And that argues then that Gerty is a fool, eh ? ” 
said the girl, her eyes flashing. 

“ Come, come, what are these expressions, Gerty ; 
fool does not sound well in the mouth of a young 
lady, does it ? ” said Sir Richard. 

“ Oh, it’s only Gerty’s fun,” said Dick, rising to 
pat her head and kiss her, “ is it, Gerty ? ” 

“ No, it’s only my fun,” she said, smiling, “ but I 
will not have Howarth ridiculed.” 

Sir Gordon Travers was an old man but hale and 
hearty. Ironmaster, landowner, politician, he had 
won fame and honour for the old Yorkshire name, 
and he wore his wealth and his title with modesty, 
but not without a full appreciation of all he had done, 
and the name and wealth he hoped to bequeath to 


62 


TBE PniNCESS MAZAROFP. 


his only son. Lady Travers had been dead some ten 
years, and the old man still grieved for her ; but he 
kept his sorrow as he did his prayers for his closet, 
though neither his prayers nor his sorrow were any 
the less sincere that they were solitary. Sir Gordon 
was a religious man in the best sense. He was tol- 
erant of every religion, of every earnest opinion, and 
he was in no wise bigoted in regard to his o^vn 
principles. He was a churchman, taking for himself 
all the margin the Church accords to its children, 
but he was jealous for the interests and influence of 
the establishment. 

“ You like Paris, Dick,” he said ; “ IVe only been 
there one or twice on business ; it did not strike me 
as a city for aught but play ; well, too much play is 
not good, though I reckon, lad, you have had a 
rough ish time, and I don’t begrudge thee a surfeit 
of it, but get it over and settle down as soon as you 
can.” 

When Sir Gordon was very much in earnest, or 
felt his affections move him strongly, he invariably 
spoke in the vernacular, and his thee’s and thou’s 
came unconsciously to his lips. 

“ The works will need thee ; I am not as tough as 
I was, and the land will need thee also, for I’ve added 
to it by a farm or two since thou went out to Africa ; 
and, moreover, there are business schemes and plans 
in connection with Africa which call for thy consider- 
ation. You’ve had your fling, lad, you’ve laden us 
up with strange trophies. We are very proud of all 
you’ve done, but time has come for action at home, 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


63 


for work and downright labour. I want to pass on 
to thee a heap of things I would like thee to take 
off my hands.” 

“All right, father, I understand, and I will not 
disappoint you ; perhaps I won’t go to Paris, but 
there’s a friend of mine at the Bristol whom I would 
like to see again, and there are one or two purchases 
I want to make, and, in short, I did not quite finish 
what I had to do there in the way of both business 
and pleasure ; I wanted to get back home the moment 
I heard you had returned — but we’ll see ; I’ll think 
it over, I may not go after all.” 

“ Don’t let me stop thee, lad, if you’d like it,” said 
Sir Gordon, “ I don’t want to lecture thee, God for- 
bid, but I only tell thee I am ready for thy helping 
hand, and thy inheritance is ready for thee to begin 
and get used to it.” 


64 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


CHAPTER V. 

AN AFTER-DINNER CHAT AT CLEEVE HOUSE. 

* ‘ A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adver- 
sity. ’ ’ — Proverbs. 

“I don’t know a more natural ambition than a 
desire to see the world,” said Evelyn Somers in 
response to a remark of the Rev. John Tremont; 
“ travel is the highest education.” 

“ Yes, travel as you understand it, Miss Somers, 
but there are thousands who travel for the mere 
pleasure of change, or because it is fashionable, 
or for the reason that they are restless, or for any 
reason but that which takes you and your father 
away on your annual trips to the continent,” said 
the young Rector of Charlton- Cleeve. 

“But your friend, Richard Travers, had better 
reasons than any of these negative ones,” said Miss 
Somers interrogatively. 

“ Instinct I think, not reason,” said Tremont, “ is 
the impulse which takes most young Englishmen 
into unexplored regions. As a friend of mme says 
in the preface of a book on the eastern seas, the 
Englishman is born to the inheritance of unexplored 
possessions ; and the more tenderly he is nurtured, 
the Trappier his home, the readier he is to court 


mE PBlNCESS MAZAttOFF. 


66 


privation and danger, in order to plant his country’s 
flag in some hitherto untrodden tract, and add to 
the scientific, geographical, and commercial prestige 
of his native land.” 

“But I did not understand that Mr. Travers 
had any special mission to Africa,” said Evelyn, 
looking up from a low seat at the Rector, who 
occupied a central position in the room, and towards 
whom the attention of the little family party was 
directed. 

Tremont was one of these men who commanded 
attention, not by any ostentation of manner, but on 
account of his deep winning voice and the air of 
unconscious authority with which he emphasised 
whatever he had to say. 

“No, Travers had no special mission,” the Rector 
replied, “he was not the accredited agent of any 
company or government, he went out under what 
might be called a miscellaneous ambition of discovery 
and sport.” 

“ The Yorkshire newspaper you sent me gives 
his journey a far higher significance than that,” 
said Evelyn. 

“ Oh, yes ; Travers has made several discoveries in 
natural history, and his botanical collection is the 
surprise and delight of Kew. At the same time his 
chief motive for going out was to satisfy the craving 
of a restless desire for adventure. That much good 
has come out of his trip says a great deal for his 
training and skill; the Geographical Society have 
already voted him their thanks and their medal.” 

5 


66 


TI^E pniJSfcEss mazahofr 


“ He must always, I suppose, have had a call in 
the direction of pioneering,” said Evelyn. “Were 
any of his ancestors great travellers ? ” 

“ Not that I am aware of,” said the Rector ; “ but 
he was always a restless, adventurous fellow, and of 
a curiously inquiring mind in respect of everything 
out of doors. Nothing would keep him close to his 
studies ; but he knew every nook and corner of the 
country for twenty miles round, every tiny haunt of 
bird and beast, every shrub and flower ; he was on 
speaking terms with everything animate and inani- 
mate ; he knew every man in the town who had been 
anywhere or had done anything; there was not 
a Don who did not regard his non-collegia te knowl- 
edge with kindly considerateness ; not a boatman 
on the river who did not feel proud of him.” 

“ A kind of athlete with intellectual gifts in the 
wrong direction,” said Evelyn. 

“ So far as Oxford was concerned, yes,” said the 
Rector ; “ one admires greatly in others gifts one 
does not possess oneself ; I remember one vacation I 
spent with him in Yorkshire at his father’s place, 
the Old Hall, that he was wonderful to see on horse- 
back ; during the few weeks I was there, every diffi- 
cult colt in the neighbourhood, every vicious horse 
was brought to Dick, who charmed them with his 
caresses or broke them with his strength.” 

“ Did he ever spend a vacation with you at Charl- 
ton Manor ? ” asked Evelyn. 

“No, somehow we had no time, and I did not 
press him much, for my father, as you know, was 


THE PRINCESS MAZAHOFF. 67 

an invalid, and I did not feel that I could offer him 
any particular attraction: he did not love books 
as 1 did ; he did not care for antiquities, for old 
houses and old histories ; he loved the field, the 
chase, the sea, the river ; excitement m the open air • 
and his father was one of those strong-armed, strong- 
headed men, who could almost rival the son in his 
physical feats and animal spirits.” 

“ That sort of person is all very well for the hunt- 
ing field and the farm,” said a somewhat sharp, em- 
phatic voice from a distant corner of the room, “ but 
among quiet, refined people as much out of place as 
an untamed mastiff in a drawing-room.” 

“ Or a bull in a china shop, to use a more familiar 
if less elegant simile,” remarked Mr. Grafton Som- 
ers, looking up from his newspaper in the direction 
of his widowed sister, Mrs. Burford Winnington, 
who, when she chose to be in evidence, received just 
as much attention as the Reverend John Tremont. 

“ Oh, but he was quite a gentle young fellow in 
his way,” said the Rector. 

“ In his way ! ” said Mrs. Whmington, a little 
scornfully. 

“ It was a very good way, I assure you. He was 
modest, gentleman- like, unaffected, quite uncon- 
scious of his strength, except, perhaps, to fancy that 
H was a trifle vulgar to be so tall and have such 
large hands as he undoubtedly had ; and I am bound 
to say he did look a trifle awkward in a drawing- 
room.” 

“ So does Mr. Gladstone,” said Evelyn, “ and Lord 


68 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


Derby is as self-conscious and as shy as if he had 
done all the awful thmgs his party charge him with.” 

‘‘No politics, Evelyn,” said the master of the 
house. 

“ Certainly not, father,” Evelyn replied, turning 
a pair of laughing eyes upon her father, whose rubi- 
cund face was looking at her over the daily paper, 
“ you know I don’t like politics ; but I don’t know 
that it is anything against a man that he does not 
look like a tailor-made nonentity in a drawing- 
room.” 

“ Quite right,” said Mr. Somers, “ and between 
ourselves, I am not so sure that Lord Derby could 
successfully defend himself from the charge of being 
a trimmer.” 

“No politics,” said Evelyn,, and the Rector had 
the speaker’s eye ; “ go on, Mr. Tremont.” 

“Dick Travers never looked anything like a 
nonentity, and he was too much of a man ever to be 
a trimmer, under any circumstances ; and I am sure 
you will be glad to know, Mrs. Winnington, that 
he was always most courteous to ladies ; his man- 
ners were far more refined than his hands.” 

“ I shall be quite prepared to learn that he has 
changed all that,” she answered, marking time with 
each word like an elocutionary martinet ; “ the sort 
of adventures in which he has been engaged are not 
likely to elevate a man’s character.” 

“ And why not, aunt ? ” asked Evelyn, with a con- 
troversial kind of expression in the tone of her 
musical voice. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


69 


“Well, I cannot imagine anything more calcu- 
lated to degrade a man’s higher nature than a long 
sojourn among savages ; my dear, the licence men 
allow themselves in those distant climes —well, there, 
I don’t think it a proper subject for a general dis- 
cussion.” 

“Oh, excuse me, aunt, that is nonsense,” said 
Evelyn, looking towards her aunt with a quiet smile 
of challenge ; “ why, we have all read our books of 
travel. Burton, Stanley, Speke, Thompson, and the 
rest, to say nothing of Schopenhauer and Spencer, 
and Msbet on Marriage and Heredity; my dear 
amit, /We no longer live in the dark ages.” 

“No, indeed we do not,” said Mre. Winnington; 
“ I sometimes wish we did ; what with heredity and 
theosophy, and one thing and another, I declare 
life in England has degenerated into one long French 
novel.” 

“ That’s a hard hit, sister,” said the master of the 
house, looking up once more from his paper. 

“ It is not harder than is warranted by the state 
of Society,” Mrs. Winnington replied. “ As a woman 
of the world who has seen the world, which Evelyn 
thinks the highest education, I do not hesitate to 
declare that the privileges which young ladies allow 
themselves in these days are positively shocking.” 

“ Thank you, aunt,” said Evelyn, smiling. 

“My darling, don’t thank me, and in that tone of 
voice ; I have nothing to say against your studies ; 
you have a head and a heart, as much heart as head, 
thank goodness ; and you have examples at home 


70 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


and around you ; nothing can hurt you, my dear. 
I must confess, nevertheless, that you do occasion- 
ally make me grow hot and cold when you let your- 
self go as Grafton says. It would not sound half as 
bad in London. But down here, in such homes as 
Cleeve House, sheltered among immemorial elms, 
as the poet would say, it seems shocking.” 

“ What, dear, what seems shocking ? ” 

“ Why, any reference to the subjects that women, 
when I was a girl, did not discuss, even among them- 
selves, but which girls hardly out of their teens now 
talk about to young men who are no older.” 

“Surely you exaggerate, my dear aunt,” said 
Evelyn. 

“ 1 am quite willing to allow for the broader edu- 
cation that women receive in these days, and for the 
higher intelligence that is to be found in all classes 
of Society; but the greater freedom that is now 
allowed is very much abused by poor weak creatures, 
who think they are wise when they are only idiots, 
often quoting words they do not understand, and 
making their pretended knowledge a cloak for their 
shocking improprieties.” 

With which outburst Mrs. Burford Winnington 
rose from her seat, went straight to Evelyn, and 
stooped down to kiss her, with the assurance that 
nothing she said referred to a clever, sensible, dear 
girl such as her dear, clever, level-headed niece — the 
best girl she ever knew, or was likely to know. 

“ That’s the way to make it up ! ” said the master 
of the house, laying aside his newspaper altogethei. 


TUE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


71 


“ I will say this for. sister Maria, that there is no 
malice in her hardest words, and as for scolding 
people, affront and apology go hand in hand with 
her, that’s a fact ; she quarrels with her maid twice 
a day, and apologises at least three times.” 

« I do nothing of the kind, Grafton, but I must offer 
the protest of a woman of the world against the un- 
feminine movements of the day, the Shelley Societies, 
the Political associations, the Blavatsky rubbish, the 
Ibsenite craze, kept alive by women, and so on,” she 
said, standing for a moment in the middle of the 
room in an attitude of defiance. 

“ But don’t you thmk women have a right to know 
all about the world in which they live, and the con- 
ditions under Which they enjoy what you would call 
the privileges of existence? Eh, aunt, don’t you 
think so, dear ? ” 

“ It depends, my child — my child, it depends ; 
most women are idiots, and, unfortunately, those who 
are the least equipped for strong knowledge seek it 
most, and understand it least, and come to grief and 
trouble over it ! ” 

“ Do you think so ? ” asked Evelyn with a puzzled 
look. 

“ I do, indeed, and I am a woman of the world.” 

“Yes, I know,” said Evelyn, who was always 
inclined to be more than usually aggressive on the 
woman question when her aunt fiung into the arena 
that gage of battle, “ I am a woman of the world.” 

“ And I can only say that, with all my experience, 
and I have had a great deal, and in various countries, 


72 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


I should be very sorry to measure myself against 
man in regard to the great problems of life ; and I 
am quite sure that the studies of women should be 
limited.” 

“ To what, dear ? ” 

« Well, to woman’s sphere,” said Mrs. Winnington. 

“ And what is woman’s sphere ? ” 

“Very much what it was at first, when the man 
went out to hunt for the pot, and the woman stayed 
at home to take care of the hut, and be ready to cook 
the spoils of the chase, when the hunter brought it 
home,” was the emphatic reply. 

“ Oh-oh-oh ! ” exclaimed the master of the house, 
once more surveying the ground from his news- 
paper, and, desirous of putting an end to a discus- 
sion he did not care to encourage, “ that comes well 
from you, sister. Oh-oh ! excuse me for laughing. 
But really ! Well, you know, Evelyn, that your 
aunt is, even now, quite equal to doing her own 
hunting; but as to waiting at home, and cook- 
ing the venison when it arrived, why, she would 
have flung it at the hunter’s head ! ” 

“ You give me a sweet character, Grafton,” Mrs. 
Winnington replied. “I hope I should have done 
my duty in the age in which I was born ; whether it 
had been in the primeval or otherwise.” 

Evelyn and the Rector both laughed at the widow’s 
last remark, and Mrs. Somers evidently thought it 
was now her turn to speak. What she had to say 
was brief, and to the point, being simply, “ Grafton, 
will you ring?” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 73 

During the foregoing discussion, Mrs. Somers had 
been sitting in the firelight, engaged upon some 
needlework. She had listened calmly to all that had 
been said, now and then smiling her acquiescence, 
now and then shaking her head. 

“Certainly, my dear,” said the master of the 
house, rising and signallmg the servants’ hall, in 
^response to which there arrived upon the scene a 
quiet old man-servant, in a quiet black livery. 

“ Coffee ! ” said Mrs. Somers, folding up her 
needlework, putting it away, and taking her place 
by the side of a many-legged old oak table, which 
the servant proceeded to place in readiness for 
coffee. 

“ I am not a woman of the world,” she said, in a 
pleasant, propitiatory voice ; “ I suppose you would 
only condescend to call me a woman of the house- 
hold, Maria ? ” 

“ If women would only consider the special sphere 
for which they are fitted,” said Mrs. Winnington, 
“ there would be no trouble ; some women, of course, 
are notably gifted ; let them have elbow room by 
all means ; some women sacrifice themselves either 
in household duties or otherwise ; they are not to 
be despised, but I don’t want them talking philoso- 
phy, and I don’t want women who know nothing of 
housekeeping pretending they are fitted for higher 
work when they are not ; or who, inspired by the 
folly and degenerate physique of a Norwegian vil- 
lage, try and imagine that they are too good for 
their husbands, or some nonsense of that kind.” 


74 the princess mazaroff. 

“ There you go again,” said Somers. “ I declare 
I never knew Maria so wound up. What ii the 
matter, Maria ? what is it ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing, dear ! I was merely going to say 
that some women have not the capacity for keeping 
house.” 

“ Or anything else, that’s a fact,” said Somers, 
laughing; “you never had, my dear sister; of all 
the careless, happy-go-lucky households I ever was 
in, yours was surely the happiest-go-luckiest.” 

“ Don’t be unkind, Grafton ; you were always 
welcome ; and Burford Winnington and I always 
did our best to make you comfortable.” 

“That is quite true, Maria,” said Mrs. Somers, 
“ and I have heard Grafton praise your dinners, and 
that frequently.” 

“ Oh, yes, that’s a fact,” said Somers, “ but who 
could help giving good dinners with such a cook and 
such a banking account ? ” 

“ Do you think it only needs a cook and money for 
good dinner giving ? ” said Maria. “ Ask your wife.” 

“ I don’t care what she may say on that point,” 
Somers replied, winking at the Rector, “ yours was 
a happy-go-lucky household, you can’t deny it. 
Hospitable, oh, yes, have all you wanted, or all you 
could get and welcome ; but nobody ever knew the 
dinner hour, the clocks were always wrong; you 
could never get a carriage up in time to catch a 
train, and yet, Maria, you were always regulating all 
the world as you are now ; that’s a fact, and you 
know it, dear, you know it.” 


THE PEmcESS MAZAEOFE. 75 

“ I know you are very rude,” said IVlrs. Winning- 
ton. 

“ No, dear, truthful,” Somers replied. “ And do 
you think I love you any the less because of your 
eccentricities, Maria? not an iota, and if any one 
else criticised you as I do I should be very angry 
with them ; yes, indeed I should.” 

“ It is all very well to say that when you have 
hurt my feelings and made me look small in the 
eyes of the Rector,” said Mrs. Winnington, with a 
slight tremor in her voice. 

“ Don’t pay any attention to him, he is only teas- 
ing you, Maria,” said Mrs. Somers, sitting down at 
an old-fashioned many-legged tea-table to dispense 
coffee and tea with the daintiest of thin bread and 
butter and the finest of hot-house fruits, for they 
were so unaccustomed to linger in the dming-room 
after dinner that Mrs. Somers always continued the 
dessert with coffee ; and, moreover, she said it made 
the tea-table look pretty ; besides, Somers liked fruit 
with his cigar, and he was allowed, with Mr. Tre- 
mont or any privileged guest, the freedom of smok- 
ing one mild cigar in the drawing-room. 

They were a typical English family party. 

Mr. Grafton Somers was the master of the house, 
a landowner and gentleman farmer on a large scale. 
He had inherited Cleeve House from a wealthy 
father who had filled the highest local offices, and 
Somers’s name had been pricked by the Queen for 
next year’s High Shrievalty of the county. His wife 
was a Coventry, of Comberton, a pleasant, round, 


76 TBE PBINGESS MAZAROFF. 

comfortable housewife, fairly well educated, but 
with a gift for household management and jams ; 
clever in giving parties and conducting a large es- 
tablishment ; who never passed a day without going 
into her kitchen, and who always went into the ac- 
counts with her housekeeper- cook once a week. She 
was a sensible, lovable, clever woman, without am- 
bition beyond her house and county. Evelyn was 
her only daughter, she had lost two children when 
most she hoped to rear them, and she and her hus- 
band had grieved much over their loss, but had 
found solace in the affection of their daughter, who 
was not only intellectually strong but of a fine 
physique, and of a stately and handsome presence. 

Mrs. Burford Winnington was a widow of forty, 
and looked ten years younger. She was a bright- 
eyed, neat, dapper little woman, with a trim figure 
and a pretty nervous mouth that looked as if it was 
always getting ready for a remark. There were a 
few genial wrinkles about her eyes, but her small 
compact forehead was smooth and open, and she 
spoke with a consciousness of the importance of all 
she had to say. It was quite a habit with her to 
raise the forefinger of her right hand in a forensic 
fashion when she wished to give special point to 
some more or less oracular observation. With all 
her little peculiarities, her foibles, and her iterations 
of the announcement that she was a woman of the 
world, she was an agreeable, clever, and entertain- 
ing companion. 

She was on a visit to Cleeve House where she 


THE PRINCESS MAZAEOEF. 


77 


was always welcome ; but she lived in London. 
She had chambers overlooking Hyde Park, and was 
well known in the best artistic society of the metro- 
polis. She had a sincere friendship for the Reverend 
John Tremont, had known his father and knew the 
son to be a worthy, modest, learned, self-sacrificing 
young clergyman. Furthermore, she believed that 
he was deeply in love with her niece, Evelyn, and 
with a woman’s keen observation she saw that 
Tremont was making upon her niece’s mind such an 
impression of the name and fame of Dick Travers 
as was not calculated to advance his own interests 
or prospects. 

“ I really don’t believe very much in the great 
courage and prowess of some of these travellers,” 
she said, when once more Tremont had mentioned 
the name of Dick Travers ; “ I have met many of 
them. They go through a country with fire and 
sword backed by hired rifies and irresponsible 
cut-throats.” 

“ But many, my dear Mrs. Winnington,” said 
Tremont, “ have gone alone, unsupported by soldiers 
or even carriers ; you don’t dispute the heroism and 
disinterestedness of Livingstone, for example ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I do ; you should hear what some 
African travellers say about Livingstone ; he did 
not want to come home ; he was much happier where 
he was. Oh, don’t tell me that men go out and stay 
for years and years Avithout there is some much 
greater attraction than science or geography, or even 
religion ! ” 


78 


THE PltlNCESS MAZAEOEF. 


“ You are in a censorious mood, aunt,” said Evelyn, 
drawing her chair close to the tea-table and com- 
pleting the family group around the fire, for although 
it was the merry month of May, the spring was 
coming to Cleeve- Charlton somewhat severely. The 
trees were beginning to put forth green buds, chest- 
nuts were full of floral promise, the thrush was 
singing his evening song in the elms by the lake, but 
Mrs. Somers kept her fire going until the summer 
really came, and the drawing-room of Cleeve House 
always looked as cozy as it was rich and artistic. 

It was a notable room, with a dado of old panelled 
oak that sprung from the fire-place, which was open 
and wainscoted within a few feet of the ceiling. 
Mrs. Somers had an idea not to follow the general 
example as to drawing-rooms, so Cleeve was unique 
in its way. Above the dado was massed a fine col- 
lections of the rarest modern etchings and engrav- 
ings. The mantelpiece was perfectly plain, without 
an ornament, except as in the matter of a fine old 
mirror and a couple of rare Oriental jars. The floor 
was of polished oak, beautifully laid and partly 
covered with rich Persian rugs. The furniture was 
Adam and Chippendale, supplemented by a beauti- 
ful carved and cushioned oak seat occupying the 
full length of the room facing the fire-place, while 
a similar seat filled the spacious bay window over- 
looking a great stretch of level lawn that dipped 
down to a lake, which reflected in its deep blue waters 
a noble cluster of fine old elms. 

There was a grand piano, the tail of which was 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 79 

half lost in a recess near the fire ; and presently 
John Tremont sat down to the instrument, and 
extemporised in a masterly way reminiscences of 
V\^agner, Beethoven, Mozart, and Weber, drifting 
eventually into old English ballad music, which, as 
he said insinuatingly by-and-by, required words for 
a full understanding of the beauty of the descriptive 
melodies. Evelyn, nothing loth, sang several famil- 
iar songs in a rich contralto voice, and with fine 
sympathetic feeling ; and after awhile John Tremont 
took his leave, and went home to his own house. 

Until long after midnight he sat smoking, or 
walking to and fro in his fine old library, surrounded 
by the books he loved, yet hardly thinking of them, 
for a wonder. They might have known it, so silently 
were they grouped together, so motionless on their 
oaken shelves. It was his habit to take them down, 
to metaphorically shake hands with them, to speak 
to them. The lamplight fell upon their varied and 
various faces, but he noted them not. If streets and 
houses have physiognomies, surely books have. 
Tremont studied their characteristics, and gave 
them dresses accordingly, and when he sought their 
companionship he approached them in different ways, 
some with deference, others apologetically, many 
with friendly familiarity, but all with respect, for 
he loved them. On this particular night he regarded 
them not, his mind was occupied with a book far 
more difficult to read than any of them, with a book 
that talked back at him, and had lovely eyes, and 
wore a beautiful puzzle of thoughts and words and 
strange conceits. 


80 


TEE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ A WOMAN OF THE WORLD.” 

“Dreams, dreams!” said the Hermit, “welcome them, 
cherish them, they are the true life ! The past ! look back 
upon it ; what is it but a dream ? The future ! look forward ; 
is there one landmark in sight ? To-morrow, what is it ? Seek 
not to know, dream on, be content ! ” 

C. k:s Note-Book, 

“I AM a woman of the world, Mr. Tremont, and 
that is more than you can say.” 

“ It is, indeed,” replied the Rector mth a quiet 
smile. 

“ Oh, yes, take me up,” said the fascinating widow, 
“ you know what I mean.” 

“ That I am not a man of the world ! ” 

“Exactly, and simply because I make a slight 
lapsus you overlook the observation itself to smile 
at a verbal error.” 

“ Not at all, my dear Mrs. Winnington,” said the 
Rector, “ I confess that it did occur to me for a 
moment to think what a difference there is between 
our experiences of the world — you a charming and 
travelled widow, I a prosaic and home-loving 
bachelor.” 

“ Better go a little farther and mention our ages ; 


THE PniNCESS MAZAROFF. 81 

you a young man of seven or eight-and-twenty, the 
youngest rector, I should say, on the Clergy List ; 
I ‘ a lone lorn widder,’ as some writer called some 
poor creature somewhere — a lone lorn widder of 
what shall I say ? Well, let us say the truth — forty, 
but with the experiences of a hundred.” 

“ And who carries her honours and her knowledge 
with the unpretentious grace of twenty,” said 
Tremont. 

“ If you were a young fortune hunter, and I was 
sufficiently attractive in regard to Consols or landed 
estates, it is quite possible you would win me, be- 
cause you wouldn’t care a button for me, and you 
would pay me pretty compliments, and flatter my 
vanity ; but to the woman you love you are just as 
stupid as— well, as most young men when they are 
really and truly in love.”. 

“ And, as a woman of the world, do you honestly 
and truly declare that I am in that happy and stupid 
condition ? ” asked the Rector. 

“ I do ; swear me on the book if you wish ! ” 

“ ‘ Swear not at all ’ is a good orthodox command ; 
let us talk it over.” 

Man and woman, widow and bachelor, were sitting 
in the shade of a rose-decked porch, the garden 
entrance to Cleeve House. Although it was only a 
couple of weeks after Mr. Somers had invited them 
to sit round the Are after dinner, it was now Summer. 
Winter lingering for ever so many weeks in the lap 
of Spring had all of a sudden taken himself off, and 
Spring, with tears and laughter, had given welcome 
6 


82 


TBE PniNCESS MAZABOFF. 


to her Summer sister. They seemed to have en- 
tered into a delightful collaboration ; for the open- 
ing of the first days of June had all the freshness 
of Spring with the soothing warmth of Summer. 

It was a sweet, sunny afternoon. Beyond the 
level lawn and outside the sunk fence among the 
foothills of the Breddons, the uncut hay was ripen- 
ing ; and again, beyond the tall grass could just be 
seen the glow of poppies in the green wheat, and up 
above rose the undulating hills into a gentle summer 
haze. 

The Rector was sitting upon the arm of an old 
stone seat, while Mrs. Burford Winnington, in a white 
Indian silk dress, brocaded with grey poppies, was 
reclining upon many cushions in a large wicker 
rocking-chair, the motions of which brought occa- 
sionally into view a pair of pretty feet enshrined in 
decorative silk hose and shoes of untanned kid. 

Considering their importance in the present nar- 
rative, it may he well in this place to give a detailed 
description of these two personages, whose physical 
and mental calibre hap only hitherto been casually 
^remarked upon. 

Mrs. Winnington was not exactly a pretty woman, 
but she was eminently attractive. Her complexion 
had suffered perhaps by foreign travel. She had 
spent three years in India, but her eyes were bright 
and grey. Her face was oval. There were wrinkles 
about the eyes, her lips were red, and her teeth white 
and regular, with that slight division between the 
two front ones which is said to denote good fortune. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


83 


It was a pleasant, alert countenance, the mouth a 
trifle too nervous, perhaps ; the eyes a little too near 
the nose, but on the whole it was a face you would 
trust. The forehead denoted a quick and reliable 
intelligence, and the lady’s manner gave pleasant 
evidence of a desire to please and be pleased. She 
bestowed great attention upon her dress. It is quite 
possible that her rich brown hair might have silver 
streaks here and there in a morning before it was 
dressed. She wore wonderful corsets. Her flgure 
was what women call perfect, and she was as nimble 
as a girl — a remarkable woman, Mrs. Burford Win- 
nington. 

The Rector was a head taller than the widow, 
though neither of them was tall. She was below 
woman’s ordinary height. He was of medium stat- 
ure, but broad-chested, broad-shouldered, and, touch- 
ing his intellectuality, one may as well say at once 
that he was a man of singularly broad views of life, 
of conduct, and of religion. He had a flne, mobile 
face, cleanly shaven; there was nothing in doubt 
about it. He had steadfast, hazel eyes, large and 
clear ; a broad-backed arched nose. Arm, well-deflned 
lips, and a generally frank, open expression of coun- 
tenance. His eyes were kindly though shrewd, and 
at times thoughtful and introspective, the complete 
effect of the entire physiognomy indicating high, 
generous character, intellectual power, devotion, 
sincerity, courage. 

Occasionally his conversation suggested cynicism, 
but he was no cynic. On the contrary, he was cour- 


84 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


teous, gracious, affable, fair-spoken, and of a most 
liberal mind. 

Cynicism is sometimes associated with a love of 
seclusion, retirement, and rustication ; but seclusion 
with books is hardly loneliness. To live half your 
life in a library is not necessarily to become unsocial, 
perverse, inhospitable. On the contrary, much may 
be said in favour of the social education, the soften- 
ing influences of such seclusion. In Tremont’s case 
they certainly were not harmful or narrowing ; in- 
deed, his straight- laced curate, Jabez Ogden, who 
had grown old in his Master’s and in Tremont’s fath- 
er’s service, bewailed the liberalism, the socialism, 
he sometimes called it, of his Rector’s opinions, 
preaching, and conduct. 

By the way, there was never a greater disappoint- 
ment felt by a certain clique of Ogdenites than when 
John Tremont came from Oxford and took over the 
family living. All previous accounts were regarded 
as indicative of a secular career for the dead Rector’s 
son, but we are all in the habit of interpreting events 
to our own good ; that is where hope so often leads 
us astray. Ogden hoped for preferment in the direc- 
tion of the Rectorship. John Tremont could not 
help him in that direction, but he increased his 
stipend and his duties, allowed him to preach almost 
as often as he pleased, did not agree with him in 
many church essentials, but let him have his way, 
and took his own way also ; and all this without 
leading to undue controversy or friction. A mile 
frona the Rectory there was a growing and import- 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 85 

ant Roman Catholic monastery, and that gave the 
parish sufficient opportunity for theological wran- 
gling and discussion. What puzzled the community 
a good deal was Tremont!s broad church views, 
especially when considered with his friendship for 
one of the young Fathers of the religious house of 
the Catholics ; but Ogden kept the balance even by 
holding severely aloof from the Catholics ; while, at 
the same time, it was thought he vied with them in 
his services — in truth, he had openly said that he 
did not believe in letting the rival church have 
thmgs all their own way ; if the parish found com- 
fort in going every now and then to the chapel on 
the hill that belonged to the monastery, he hoped to 
show them that the Church of England within her 
own blessed pale could refresh the soul with music 
just as good, and with formalities just as impressive, 
as those of Catholicism, without the mummery and 
theatrical insincerity of the rival church. And so 
among them the service of the Lord was popularised 
and made a vital thing; the Rector of Charlton- 
Cleeve all the time pursuing the even tenor of his 
way, loving with the devotion of a genial youth and 
a sturdy manhood the friend of his boyhood, Rich- 
ard Gordon Travers, and filling the balance of 
his heart with the soothing, happy face of Evelyn 
Somers. 

Out of the world as Charlton- Cleeve undoubtedly 
was, it occasionally gave receptions to the country 
folk ; and recluse as John Tremont loved to be, he 
once in a way went into the county town to take 


86 


TEE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


part in some special function of the Church or of the 
field. He never missed the hunt dinner once a year, 
and he attended the musical festival at the old church 
in the pretty little capital of the county. On the lat- 
ter occasions he wore the white neck-cloth that marks 
the clergyman. In the ordinary course of thmgs he 
dressed as a layman, and in many respects thought 
as a layman, though he was punctilious in the per- 
formance of all his local duties as the Rector of 
Charlton-Cleeve. He gave to the poor and to the 
best institutions of the Church ten times the income 
of his living, which was part of his inheritance from 
a line of famous old ancestors who had lived and died 
at Charlton Manor and filled the little church with 
eflQgies in marble, effigies in metals, and armorial 
reminiscences, quaintly combined with apostolic 
biography, in stained glass. 

But something too much of this. Let us get back 
to the widow in her rocking-chair and to the Rector 
lounging on the broad arm of the old seat by her side. 

“Yes, my dear Rector, you may indeed say I am 
a travelled woman,” remarked Mrs. Winnington, 
continuing the conversation so characteristically 
begun in the first page of the present chapter, with 
a note of admiring exclamation ; “ any one who 
knows what travel is, especially Eastern travel, 
could not fail to envy you your lovely retreat of 
Charlton Manor, not to mention your picturesque 
church, and your delightful profession of the cure 
of souls.” 

“ There are some people even in this limited par- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


87 


ish, Mrs. Winnington, who think I am utterly out 
of place in the Church, and that my idea of the sal- 
vation of souls is about as erroneous as the American 
colonel’s eloquent lectures, which aim at convincing 
the world that none of us have a soul to save.” 

“I verily believe that the American colonel is 
right as to some people. Indeed, 1 do not think it 
is the vocation of all persons to have a soul at all ! 
Don’t you remember — of course you do — that the 
great Master spoke of the future life as something 
that did not belong to every one — “ to him that hath 
shall be given,” I think were His exact words. But 
forgive me, I promised my worthy brother Grafton 
only yesterday that I would not talk theology again 
for a week at least ; nor Ibsen, nor theosophy, nor 
hypnotism, nor anything in any way controversial.” 

“ I am sorry for that,” said Tremont ; “ why did 
you make so rash a pledge ? ” 

“ Because Grafton quarrelled with me over the 
question of hereditary sin, physical and moral, and 
Evelyn ventured to remark that her father did not 
take so impartial a view of the Blavatsky cult as he 
might.” 

“ Evelyn has an open mind about the vexed ques- 
tions of the day,” said Tremont. 

“ Too open, too free, I think, Mr. Tremont ; I am 
myself, as you know, very liberal, but I draw the 
line at the faith which sees a visible man climb sky- 
wards up an invisible rope, and then come back dis- 
membered, to reappear presently in all the complete- 
ness of Hindoo manhood,” 


88 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“Yes, that is a feat which taxes the imagination; 
but I confess that the psychic-search men, the theo- 
sophists, and other faddists, so-called, of the time are 
collecting together a great deal of interesting litera- 
ture upon various occult things, and I am not in- 
clined to laugh at them even if I am amused, not to 
say amazed, at some of their wild assertions.” 

“ Yes, that is what Grafton says. He thinks you 
encourage Evelyn in what he calls her pretty wrong- 
headedness, and that, as a clergyman, you ought to 
assume a certain amount of orthodoxy, though you 
have it not. But talking of Evelyn brings me back 
to the point where you interrupted me.” 

“ Did I interrupt you ? ” 

“ Did you not, when I felt it my duty to remind 
you that I am a woman of the world ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, you were saying something about Dick 
Travers.” 

“ I was saying that if you have any thought of 
Evelyn for yourself, you are going just the wrong 
way to win her.” 

“ What do you mean by winning her, Mrs. Win- 
nington ? ” 

“ I am quite sure you are too much of a gentleman 
to perpetrate a pun upon my name, but you never 
seem to take me seriously, and I don’t know to what 
lengths your clerical levity may lead you. I mean 
by your winning Evelyn exactly what you know I 
mean, and I tell you that to continually praise 
another man is not the way to get a girl’s mind 
concentrated upon your own meyits.” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 89 

“ Can you wonder that such a stay-at-home as I 
should find a delightful theme in the adventures of 
his oldest and dearest friend ? ” 

“ Oh, no, I don’t wonder at that ; but I advise you 
not to make Evelyn fall in love with him — that is, if 
you are in love with Evelyn yourself.” 

“ You have such a practical way with you, Mrs. 
Winnington — who has suggested that I am in love 
with Evelyn?” 

“ Who has suggested it ! Oh, you unsophisticated, 
clever, broad-shouldered, unorthodox good fellow ! 
Who has suggested it ! ” 

Mrs. Burford Winnington leaned back in her 
wicker chair, laughed, showed her white teeth, and 
declared that Tremont was “too funny for any- 
thing.” 

“ I am glad I amuse you,” said the Rector, « I 
wish I could make my parishioners laugh at our 
monthly Penny Readings; but they treat me en- 
tirely differently from the way in which you say I 
treat you ; they take me seriously, whether I recite 
to them a ballad by Tom Hood, an idyll by Bret 
Harte, or a passage from Milton ! Do I then make 
myself ridiculous with your niece ? ” 

“ My dear Mr. Tremont, ridiculous, no ! But the 
ostrich with its head in the sand, calmly waiting 
for the hunter to pass, is not more in hiding than 
is your love for Evelyn ; why, my dear friend, every- 
body knows it ! The villagers know it.” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said Tremont. 

“ Every one of them,” continued the widow. 


90 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Absurd ! ” said Tremont. 

“ Your man, Sandy Macdonald, knows all about it, 
and talks you over with the housekeeper.” 

« You exaggerate, Mrs. Winnington,” said Tre- 
mont. 

“ If I said Evelyn’s Skye-terrier knows aU about 
it I might exaggerate, perhaps, though I will not 
be sure about that ; dogs are often as wise and dis- 
criminating as human beings.” 

“Very odd, is it not?” said Tremont with an 
amused smile, “ that Evelyn and I know nothing 
of it.” 

“ Do you mean to say, my reverend friend. Rec- 
tor, and perpetual curate of Charlton- Glee ve, and 
hereditary owner of Charlton Manor and the lands 
thereunto belonging, that you are not over head 
and ears in love with my niece. Miss Evelyn Som- 
ers, daughter of Mr. Grafton Somers, Justice of the 
Peace and Lord of the Manor ? ” 

Mrs. Winnington rose to launch this declamatory 
question at Tremont, who bowed his head with mock 
solemnity before the charge, and then replaced the 
widow’s chair and motioned her to be again seated. 

“ No, I cannot sit still,” she said, “ in presence of 
such insensibility ; I declare you positively excite 
me with your sang froid ; you are as bad as our 
friend Mr. Edward Wakeman.” 

“ As good, you mean,” said Tremont, re\dving the 
plumpness of the cushions which had given to the 
shapely form of the excitable widow. 

“ As bad I said, and I mean what I say,” she re- 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 91 

plied, as Tremont took her hand gallantly and led 
her to her seat, into which she almost disappeared 
with a sigh among a little cushion world of swans- 
down and satin. 

“ Now don’t you think if I were in love with your 
niece. Miss Evelyn Somers, as you say 1 am, and 
as Evelyn’s Skye- terrier knows only too well, that 
it would he my duty to confess to her father before 
I confessed to her aunt, however sympathetic that 
kind and genial aunt might be ” 

“ Oh, yes, laugh at me, and make out I want to 
pump you, insinuate that I am inquisitive ; that is 
so like you.” 

“ Is it ? Then I am sorry. I thought I had a way 
of speaking frankly. I remember once that you 
said I was brusque, that I did not approach difficult 
matters with tact; but I have no doubt you are 
right; no man knows himself; it is worth while 
now and then to have the opinion of a clever, trav- 
elled woman upon one’s peculiarities. Still, as I was 
saying, don’t you think I ought first to tell Mr. 
Somers, and next his daughter, the secret you and 
the village and the Skye- terrier have discovered ? ” 

“ Now you are angry ! ” exclaimed the widow, look- 
ing up at Tremont with all the sympathy and friend- 
ship she could express in her bright grey eyes. 

“ Angry ? No, truly ; how could I be angry with 
you ! I was never angry with a woman in my life.” 

“ Ah, you are a bachelor ; there is time enough.” 

“ Nothing that you would be likely to do or say, 
my dear Mrs. Winnington, could make me angry.” 


92 


THE PHINCESS HAZAROFF. 


“That is, as I said before, because you do not 
take me seriously.” 

“ Here is a friend who takes you seriously, Mrs. 
Wilmington — very seriously, I think — the gentle- 
man you mentioned only a moment ago.” 

“ What, that good-natured, genial, but somewhat 
mysterious Mr. Wykeham ?” she exclaimed. 

“Yes, he is coming from the house along the 
western side.” 

“Alone!” she asked, arranging her skirts and 
assuming the most graceful pose that the chair and 
its many cushions would permit. 

“ No, Evelyn is with him ; shall I go and meet 
them?” 

“ Shall you go and meet Evelyn you mean?” 
said the widow, laughing. 

“And release that good-natured but somewhat 
mysterious Mr. Wykeham ? ” the Rector rejoined. 

“ You do take one up so ! ” said the widow. “ I 
really wonder you keep so bright, living out of the 
v/ > -1 1 a.^ you do.” 

“ It is a reflected brilliance, my dear Mrs. Win- 
'iri^^on; Charlton- Cleeve plays the moon to your 
sunlight.” 

“Why, they are not coming this way, they have 
turned into the rose garden,” said the widow, who 
had been watching Evelyn and Wykeham while she 
was talking to Tremont. 

“Have they, really? Why, that good-natured 
and genial Mr. Wykeham is more mysterious than 
ever this morning.” 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


93 


“ What a tease you are ! One would think that 
I had more than a friendly feeling for the young 
man. Pray get that out of your wise head at once, 
my dear Mr. Tremont ; nothing will ever induce me 
to marry again.” 

“ Do you call Wykeham nothing ? ” 

“ 1 don’t understand you.” 

N othing will ever induce you to marry again 
you say.” 

Very well, then, I will amend the remark and 
say nobody will induce me to change my con- 
dition.” 

“ And I will vary my question. Do you call 
Wykeham nobody ? ” 

“ I declare you are quite a torment to-day, I don’t 
know what has come over you,” said the widow, 
not unable, with all her travelled experience of the 
world, to conceal the pleasure which the Rector’s 
badinage gave her. 

“ I think I had better go and see what other 
attraction there is for that good-natured, genial 
young man, in the rose garden, beyond our host’s 
fair daughter, eh ? ” 

“ Not on my account,” said the widow, leaning 
back in her chair, and closing her eyes. 

“ But you will excuse me,” said the Rector, taking 
off his straw hat. 

“ I will not say another word,” the widow replied ; 
« you are determined to misunderstand me.” 

“ I don’t think so ; do you like a red rose or a 
white rose best ? or a blush rose ? ” 


94 tbe phincess mazaboff. 

“ Either, so that it has no thorns,” said the 
widow. 

“ Yoti are too fastidious,” the Rector replied, « and 
you cannot have read your Dr. Watts, who, after 
complimenting the busy bee, girded at the ‘ cursed 
soil,’ ‘whose rill of pleasure has no unpolluted 
spring, so roses grow on thorns and honey wears a 
sting.’ Oh, he was a great philosopher I assure. 
Dr. Watts ! I will go and find out what Mr. Wyke- 
ham knows about him. Au revoir,'*'* and the Rector 
took his way round by the western entrance and 
disappeared behind the tall trim edge of the Cleeve 
House flower garden. 

“ I have hardly ever known the Rector so merry ! 
What is the meaning of it, I wonder ? ” said the 
widow. 


THE PBIJSrCESS MAZABOFF. 


95 


CHAPTER yil. 

AMONG THE ROSES AT CLEEVE HOUSE. 

“ Come on, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are 
present ; and let us speedily use the creatures like as in youth. 

“Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and 
let no flower of the Spring pass us by. 

“Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they be 
withered . ” — So lomon. 

An ounce of woman’s instinct is worth a bushel of 
man’s wisdom. 

The most shallow-brained widow is a Solon in 
petticoats compared with a bachelor in love. John 
Tremont ought to have known this. He should 
have learnt it in his books. 

And yet he took no more notice of Mrs. Winning- 
ton’s warnings than he did of her declaration that 
she was a woman of the world. In regard to this 
latter point he may be forgiven, for instead of the 
fact becoming the stronger for repetition, the widow’s 
oral trade mark had been quite rubbed out by 
constant use. Indeed, her friends began to dis- 
believe in it altogether. Even that good-natured, 
genial Wykeham disbelieved it in his secret soul, 
although his secret soul was full of the image of the 
pleasant widow, and his memory treasured her 
lightest words. 


96 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


Her woman’s instinct had, however, given Tre- 
mont wholesome warning. Unhappily he was too 
wise in his own conceit, at any rate in regard to his 
friendship for Travers and his undeclared love for 
Evelyn, to take serious note of the widow’s useful 
hints. 

Once or twice he had been on the eve of making 
his real feelings towards Evelyn understood in 
words. It was true, as Mrs. Winnington informed 
him, everybody knew he was in love with Evelyn 
Somers. The girl’s mother understood it ; she 
often talked it over with Grafton, who had confessed 
that he sometimes wondered that the Rector did 
not speak of it. “ All in good time,” the mother 
had said ; “ Evelyn is not as other girls ; she does 
not think that the natural destiny of every woman 
is to marry ; she is in no hurry.” 

“ Which means,” the father had replied, « that 
she has not made up her mind about Tremont, and 
perhaps he knows that, and therefore says nothing 
about it.” 

There was a good deal of truth in this last view 
of the situation between Evelyn and Tremont. 

They had known each other intimately during 
the last three years of Tremont’s rectorship. They 
were well acquainted before that. Tremont’s father 
was a great friend of Evelyn’s father ; and Evelyn’s 
mother and Treraont’s mother, as girls, went to the 
same school. The two families were therefore very 
closely connected by ties of locality and friendship. 

Evelyn had finished her education at one of the 


TBE princess MAZAROFP. 97 

higher women’s colleges of London, and in mind 
and thought, in knowledge and study, was abreast 
with the educational movements of the time, in 
sympathy with the highest ambitions of women, 
and disinclined to be over -critical, even with regard 
to the follies into which literary and lecturing 
women had plunged, in their search for the higher 
wisdom and in defence of the various cults to which 
some of the most learned, or the most eccentric, of 
the sex had committed their sympathetic sisters. 

It is therefore easy to understand that Miss 
Somers found the companionship of John Tremont 
both pleasant and instructive. He was peculiarly 
broad-minded, as we have already seen, in matters 
of theology, religion, and politics. He was deeply 
read ; indeed he knew too much to be a bigot or an 
enthusiast. It is the man of one idea who is the 
enthusiast, not the student who is omnivorous in 
his reading. Knowledge often tames ambition. It 
had given Tremont something of the philosophy of 
the Pope who instanced the life of Christ as a warn- 
ing to reformers, but it had not dried up his natural 
sensibilities ; and when one says he was not an en- 
thusiast it would be right to define the meaning of 
enthusiasm in the general acceptation of the term, 
as first, the ardent belief in a special revelation 
from God, and secondly, as devotion to some great 
public cause or object — a devotee, a zealot ; for Tre- 
mont was an enthusiast in one direction. He was 
an enthusiast in his friendship for Dick Travers ; 
and Mrs. Winnington was right in suspecting that 
7 


08 


THE PitmCESS MAZAROEF. 


a nature such as Evelyn’s might catch some of 
Tremont’s intense admiration for his one great in- 
timate friend who was heroically enshrined in his 
memory and thoughts. 

Evelyn possessed more of the character of an en- 
thusiast in the rightful meaning of the word than 
Tremont. She believed in the virtuous supremacy 
of woman over man. She believed that women 
were capable of all that men had done or could do 
from an intellectual stand-point, and it entertained 
Tremont to hear her enforce her arguments in these 
directions. She gave man all his physical rights, 
but she insisted on the superior wisdom of woman 
as the adviser, the seer, the oracle, and she resisted 
with all her eloquence the idea that women should 
be the submissive wives that men had designed they 
should be. Tremont was fain to admit that for cen- 
turies men had made the laws for women and with- 
out the aid or consent of women, and he was in 
favour of giving them a much wider freedom than 
they now possessed. He liked as far as possible to 
agree with Evelyn, and he loved to discuss all 
kinds of questions with her, delighted in rousing 
her to enthusiasm, loved to see her eyes flash and 
the colour rush into her pale, handsome face. 

Miss Somers was not beautiful but, she was some- 
thing more, she was handsome, with an intellectu- 
ality that did not hurt her womanliness. It was a 
beauty you experienced ; not a beauty you saw all 
at once. Evelyn had her moods. Sometimes she 
was gentle, tender, feminine, womanly. Sometimes 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


99 


she was sad, gloomy, with tearful eyes. Sometimes 
she was alert and active in mind and body, ready 
for anything, argument, lawn tennis, singing and 
dancing, her face aglow, her voice loud, her man- 
ners noisy. She was variable, even frivolous oc- 
casionally, but she was never a fool, and she was 
always a woman. 

What was her age ? Twenty-five. Did she love 
John Tremont? Who can fathom woman’s heart? 
She liked his society and would sing for him when 
she would sing for no one else. She admired his 
character, sometimes said he was wasting his life, 
but at other times defended his humility, the hu- 
mility of the wise and learned man, the humility of 
the true philosopher. 

Perhaps Tremont was not selfish enough for a 
successful lover. The lover who is persistent in his 
suit is the lover most appreciated by women ; the 
bold and unceasing wooer, the man who declares he 
cannot live without the woman to whom he kneels, 
the lover who thinks self and talks self, who de- 
spairs, who says life has no object for him but one, 
who never takes the trouble to mention the woman’s 
happiness, who ignores her share of the bargain ex- 
cept in so far as it administers to his wishes, to his 
pleasure. This is the man for most women, this is 
the man who wins. 

Tremont was not one of these lovers. He feared 
to take advantage of his position in the Somers’ 
family. He hesitated about pushing his suit through 
the strategy of discussion. While he challenged 


100 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


Evelyn’s intellect, he was bashful in regard to the 
imposition of his hopes and desires upon her heart. 
He loved her so well that he raised her too high for 
assault. At the same time, whenever he had felt 
himself inclined to start on this thorny path of sug- 
gestion, whenever he had felt he was approaching 
that something of word and look that becomes a 
declaration almost without speech, Evelyn had held 
back every hmt or show of encouragement. And so 
they went on from day to day, from week to week, 
from month to month, until they were such good 
friends and true, that “ the rosy god of love ” betook 
himself to the contemplation and encouragement of 
other more combustible hearts. 

Nevertheless on this summer afternoon Tremont 
was unusually brave. Evelyn did not remember 
when he was so light-hearted and happy. After he 
had sent Wykeham off to find the widow he told her 
all about the chat he had had with Mrs. Winning- 
ton ; how he had jested with her about Wykeham, 
how he believed the widow was really in love with 
the young fellow from town, but he said nothmg of 
the widow’s warning. 

Evelyn was sittmg in what might literally be 
called a bower of roses. Mr. Somers was a famous 
amateur rose grower. At some of the local flower 
shows he had carried off prizes against all-comers, 
professional and otherwise. His rose garden cov- 
ered a couple of acres, and — on this .Tune day when 
Evelyn and Tremont sat in one of the two summer 
houses that dominated it — the place was a paradise of 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


101 


blooms and perfume. There were roses of every hue. 
The unattainable blue rose was even on its way to- 
wards realisation among the lovely graftings of the 
Somers’ garden. There had been rain in the early 
morning, and here and there a crystal drop sparkled 
on leaf and flower. When Evelyn found in this a 
reflection touching the sorrows of life being so closely 
bound up with its happiness, Treniont, all unlike 
himself, likened the raindrops not to nature’s tears 
but to the diamond sparkling on the bosom of beauty. 

“ You are indeed in a merry mood,” said Evelyn, 
gathering her long trailing skirts together, and com- 
posing herself in her pretty garden chair as if for a 
long and agreeable talk. 

“ I have a pleasant surprise for you,” he replied, 
leaning against the door-post of the arbour, a con- 
trast of careless dressing compared with Evelyn’s 
pretty costume. 

There was nothing in the educational acquirements 
of Evelyn that induced her to forget that she was a 
woman, a good-looking woman, and a woman who 
could set off a pretty dress. This indeed was one of 
the charms of Evelyn Somers. She was what some 
people reproachfully called strong-minded without 
any of the outward signs of the aggressive female 
battling for women’s rights ; she was feminine and 
attractive; and on this pleasant summer day, she 
was a bright example of comely English beauty in 
her grey Liberty crape dress, with gloves and shoes 
of grey Swede and soft grey chip hat, with its long 
trailing sprays of pale pink roses. 


102 the princess mazaroff. 

Tremont noted this, and looked down with a little 
tremor of delight into her brown eyes and felt the 
soft, insinuating influence of the time. 

Evelyn was playing with a parasol of grey chiffon, 
about which was repeated the trailing roses of her 
hat. Her pale complexion had caught something of 
the rosy hues of the arbour and her own pinky 
decorations. 

If she had never known Tremont so merry, he had 
never remarked her as looking so attractive, so 
prettily dressed at home. He had seen her at the 
local flower shows, the observed of all observers, 
not alone for her noble face but for her pretty and 
striking costume; but to-day she was attired so 
daintily and so much as he thought in the best fash- 
ion, that her beauty was enhanced by her costume, 
and her wit by both. 

For a moment he longed to tell her this. For a 
moment he forgot his friend and only remembered 
himself. For a moment he was in a humour to con- 
fess his love. It is not unlikely that had he done so, 
Evelyn might have been surprised into accepting 
his homage, and even naming the day ; only for a 
moment ! What sin had John Tremont committed 
that fortune should have let the moment go ? 

“ And what is the surprise ? ” Evelyn asked pres- 
ently when Tremont had done gazing at her, and 
letting the one great promising moment of his life 
go by without taking the gift it seemed to offer 
him. 

Travers is coming to Charlton-Cleeve.” 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


103 


« When ? ” 

“ This evening.” 

“ And that is why you are so gay ? ” 

“ Yes,” he said, and there was a momentary shade 
of disappointment in the tone of his answer, respon- 
sive to just a momentary shade of disappointment in 
the manner in which Evelyn said, and that is the 
reason why you are so gay ? ” 

Is it possible that she had expected a declaration 
of love ? Is it possible that in dressing herself for 
an afternoon walk in the grounds, and afternoon tea 
by the eastern porchway on the lawn, Evelyn had 
actually been moved by thoughts of love ? Is it quite 
possible that the “ rosy god,” returning for a moment, 
had given the dallying couple a passing recognition, 
and had touched them both, if only with a brush of 
his wing ? 

“ This evening,” she said rising ; “ will you give 
me my parasol ? ” 

“ Yes, I hope you will like him,” he said, handing 
her the sunshade and assisting her to rise. 

“ Like him ! Why, of course I shall like him very 
much. Was he in Paris in December? ” 

“ I think he was,” said Tremont. 

“ Do you know,” she said plucking a rose and 
bending over it for a moment, “ I have sometimes 
thought that the strange Englishman who stopped 
our horses in the Place Vendome at the risk of his 
life, might have been your friend Mr. Richard 
Gordon Travers. 

What a curious fancy ! ” said Tremont. 


104 the princess mazaroff, 

« Oh, I don’t know ; he was very much like your 
description of Travers. Very tall ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Tremont. 

“ A large mouth that one could imagine to be more 
in sympathy with mirth than with sorrow ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Bright grey eyes, fine arched eyebrows ? ” 

« Yes.” 

“ Rather an apologetic kind of manner ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Very proud nevertheless ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Large hands ? ” 

“Yes, very.” 

“ Careless in dress ; wore a brown velvet shoot- 
ing coat and grey trousers ; both of which when we 
met were soiled with mud and dirt annexed during 
his struggle with our horses.” 

“ Quite a good description of Dick,” said Tremont 
smiling ; but oddly enough, in spite of himself he did 
not feel quite happy in listening to Evelyn’s detailed 
account of her hero of the Place Vendome. 

“ And there was a lounging swing in the manner 
of his walk,” she went on, “ partly due to his height, 
partly to his indifference to opinion, which is pride 
in disguise, and partly from the habit of riding.” 

“ Yes,” said Tremont, “ whether it is Dick or not 
you will know the man who stopped your horses, 
whenever you meet him.” 

“ Yes, I shall never forget him,” she said, and 
Tremont noticed that she seemed to be looking into 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


105 


space. She sighed and did not speak again for some 
minutes ; neither did he ; and when they did speak, 
they both avoided the subject of the carriage 
accident. 

By this time they had reached the spot where 
Mrs. Winnington and Mr. Edward Wykeham were 
sitting, and as they approached them a servant was 
placing afternoon tea outside the porch. At the 
same moment Mrs. Somers came out of the house in 
a tea-gown of a soft but much bef rilled pattern, upon 
which Evelyn complimented her. 

“ But you always look sweet, mother, and what is 
more you are sweet ; and kind hearts are more than 
coronets.” 

“And common sense,” added the widow, “ than 
Norman blood. I declare it has been quite a poetic 
afternoon ; the Rector quoted Dr. Watts to me, and 
Mr. Wykeham has given me a taste of Tennyson.” 

“ No ; has he though ? ” said Mr. Grafton Somers, 
the Saturday Reveiw in one hand and half-a-dozen 
magazines in the other, all of which he proceeded to 
lay upon the floor by the side of the lowest seat at 
the table. 

“ He that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” he 
said, nodding at the Rector and slipping quietly into 
his favourite chair. 

“ And the devil did grin, for his darling sin is 
pride that apes humility,” rejoined Mrs. Winnington. 

“ Oh, you are there,” said Somers, “ I did not see 
you for the moment, thought you were among the 
roses with Wykeham; oh, no! Ted is here too, I 


106 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

see ; why, what a happy party we are ! When did 
you come, Ted ? ” 

“By the 1.30,” said Wykeham; and from the 
manner in which he spoke you would have expected 
him to blush ; but he did not. Most people thought 
Wykeham blushed and was shy ; but he did not 
blush and he was not shy. He had a peculiar 
manner, and was montonous in his movements. He 
never hurried. When he said he would be off he 
was not off — he lingered ; indeed he lingered over 
everything and everybody, especially over Mrs. Win- 
nington. He lingered in his speech, but he always 
said the right thing and at the right time. He had 
a slight lisp, very slight, just enough to emphasise 
his individuality. He had a habit of rubbing his 
hands together, especially when he was saying some- 
thing to the point. And he would linger over the 
point quite cleverly, as orators do when they have 
got a particularly good one, and want their audiences 
to believe they are hesitating for a word. Not that 
Wykeham did this intentionally ; it belonged to his 
intellectual method ; he couldn’t help it. 

Wykeham was a stock- broker ; his father was a 
stock-broker; his grandfather before him had been a 
stock-broker ; though, as Dick said, when questioned 
by Mrs. Winnington upon the subject, “how we 
came to be in such a low, common business I never 
could make out, seeing that our great ancestor was 
William Wykeham, or William of Wykeham, as he 
preferred to call himself, being a proud man — Bishop 
of Winchester, when it was something to be a bishop ; 


THE PBINCESS MAZAEOFF. 107 

you should see him in the portrait that hangs in — 
father’s dining-room — I tell you it is just somethmg 
too tremendous— a mitre, the Attenborough of the 
time would have advanced— thousands on, and a cope 
that was equally studded — with precious stones.” 

He did not say all this right off fluently and 
without hesitation, but he lingered here and there 
to give point to his sentences, and he maintained, as 
he always did, the same calm, imperturbable counte- 
nance, not exactly grave, but unemotional, and always 
with ever so small a suspicion of a laugh that had 
to come in somewhere but never came. 

“ Yes, indeed, I must see that portrait,” Mrs. 
Winnington had said, and sure enough she did see 
it, and with all speed, for there had come to her an 
invitation to dinner from Wykeham p^re^ and she 
had found it all just as Ted had described; and 
what had delighted her as much as anything was 
Wykehamjt)^/-e’s announcement to her that there had 
been a great rise in Egyptians since he had made a 
certain little speculative investment for her. And 
it was soon after this dinner that Mrs. Winnington 
had introduced Edward Wykeham to Mr. and Mrs. 
Somers, and since which time, whenever Mrs. Win- 
nington was visiting Charlton- Cleeve, Wykeham had 
obtained an invitation to spend Saturday until Mon- 
day, and the Somers family grew to be quite fond of 
Ted and he made himself agreeable to everybody in 
the place. The Rector even found him an intelli- 
gent companion ; for Ted had a store of curious in- 
formation all about the city, foreign investments, 


108 


THE PRINCESS MAZAR^FF. 


international diplomacy, and the Wykehams of 
Wykeham in Hampshire, where Wykeham p^re 
owned quite a large estate. 

‘4 Well, Evelyn, did you find out what made the 
Rector so gay to-day? I declare there was no 
bearing with his lively sallies this morning.” 

“His what?” exclaimed Somers. 

“ His lively sallies,” repeated the widow, defiantly. 

“ Shocking ! ” exclaimed Somers, winking at Tre- 
mont. 

“ Grafton, you. grow worse and worse,” said the 
widow, “ pray attend to your magazines and let us 
alone.” 

“ There ! that will keep Grafton quiet,” said Mrs. 
Somers, handing him a cup of tea while the servant 
placed before him a plate of dainty bread and butter 
and a dish of strawberries. 

“ The Rector has been unusually mirthful,” said 
Evelyn, “but don’t you know why ? ” 

“ No ! ” said several voices together. 

“ It is not a secret?” she asked, turning to Tre- 
mont. 

“ Oh, no : I was going to make a general proclama- 
tion of the news after I had told it to you.” 

“ Mr. Richard Gordon Travers is expected at 
Cleeve Manor this evening.” 

“ Really ! ” said Mrs. Somers, “ how interesting ! ” 

“You don’t say so!” said Somers, “that is an 
event ; you will have the district reporter of the 
County Journal calling upon you.” 

“I know why he didn’t tell me,” said Mrs. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 109 

Winnington, raising her oracular finger ; “well, we 
shall see.” 

“ Why would he not tell you?” Evelyn asked. 

“ Don’t ask me at present. I may tell you some 
day.” 

“ Won’t you take some tea? ” asked Ted, handing 
a cup to Mrs. Winnington, “and you have taken no 
cream with your strawberries.” 

One ought almost to have Ted’s remarks printed 
specially, with furtive commas here and there and 
lingering dashes ; but the reader will quite get into 
the habit, I hope, of feeling that this is how Ted 
talks, because, if the reader does feel like that, he 
will relish Ted all the more, and he is a very worthy 
fellow though he is odd and only a stock-broker. 

“ Mr. Travers is the gentleman who has been to 
Africa, I believe ? ” said Ted, quietly taking a seat 
by the side of Mrs. Winnington, when he was quite 
sure she had got all the tea and bread and butter 
and strawberries she wanted. 

“ Yes,” said the Rector. 

“Your old college friend?” said Ted, measuring 
his sentences. 

“ The same,” said Tremont. 

“ Yes, I saw it in Truth or the World that he was 
making a coaching drive through the Midlands and 
the South — he and his father and his sister. He is a 
great whip — Mr. Richard Gordon Travers — it was 
he who drove the coach over Harthover Fell, with- 
out a skid — and with the leaders running away — 
one wheel half over the — precipice, and yet he got 


110 THE PRINCESS MAZABOEF. 

through without breaking a trace — much less losing 
—a life.” 

“ Did the Rector tell you that ? ” asked Mrs. Win- 
nington. 

“ ISTo,” said Ted, “ it was all in the World or Truths 
I forget which — I suppose it’s true — they get some 
wonderful stories into those clever — papers. I know 
a man in the city who invents — stories for some of 
the newspapers.” 

“ Well, he might invent something worse,” said 
Somers, “ that’s a fact ; one of you clever people in 
the city persuaded me to put some money into an 
invention for printing without types ; I lost a thou- 
sand pounds over that invention.” 

“ You got out cheaply,” said Ted, “ they might 
have — induced you to become — a — director, and 
there’s no knowing where you would have — been if 
they had — done that for you. I know several 
directors who are serving their time at — Dartmoor.” 

“ You don’t say so ! ” exclaimed Somers, dropping 
all his paper ; “is that a fact ? ” 

“ It is,” said Ted with a decided twinkle in the 
eye nearest to Mrs. Winnington. “ I could tell you 
several* other — equally startling facts.” 

“ I dare say you could,” said Somers ; “ you city 
men have strange experiences.” 

“ Not so strange as some of you county gentlemen, 
who make miscellaneous — investments — I’m think- 
ing,” said Ted, smiling more significantly than usual 
at the widow. 

“ Don’t invoke disagreeable memories,” said Mrs. 


THE PitlNCESS MAZAROPP. Ill 

Winnington. “ Grafton has sown all his wild oats 
in the way of speculation.” 

“ Yes, thank goodness,” said Grafton, “ I am quite 
content with four per cent, nowadays.” 

“ And you thrive on it, Mr. Somers,” said Ted. 
“ As for me I want five- and- twenty, and sometimes 
— I get it.” In an aside to Mrs. Winnington he 
said, “ I am only getting even with him for poking 
fun at you.” 

“Well, then, never mind. I would much rather 
you would he the pleasant fellow you are, and I don’t 
want you to get even, as you call it, for me,” Mrs. 
Winnington replied behind her tea-cui) and saucer. 

“Yes, he is driving,” said Tremont, answering 
a question put hy Mrs. Somers. 

“I had a telegram from Worcester this morning; 
he said he would arrive at six, and he mentioned 
his father and sister. I have arranged to entertain 
them, and it occurred to me that you might all come 
and dine with me at seven.” 

“ This evening?” said Mrs. Somers. 

“ I know it is a very short notice ; but it is of 
course without ceremony, merely a dinner of neigh- 
bours and friends.” 

“We will come of course,” said Mrs. Somers. 
“ Eh, Evelyn, what do you say ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” Evelyn replied. 

“And Mrs. Winnington?” said Tremont. 

“ With pleasure,” said the widow. 

“ And you, Mr. Wykeham ? ” 

“ Thank you very much,” said Wykeham. 


112 


THE PUINCESS MAZABOFF. 


And just then several callers dropped in for after- 
noon tea, including the Rev. Jabez Ogden and his 
aged mother ; the Miss Wemberleys of Tewksbury 
Hall, Sir Peter Storrs and Lady Storrs ; and in the 
midst of shaking hands and friendly gossip and in- 
quiry, Tremont left to prepare for his guests . Evelyn 
begging to be excused, sought her room, flung her- 
self into a chair and burst into tears, why she knew 
not. Her heart ached sorely. She felt as if the 
shadow of some great impending misfortune had 
fallen upon her. 


THE PU1NCE88 MAZAHOFF. 


113 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PIONEER AND THE STAY-AT-HOME. 

“ Oh! happiness! our being’s end and aim! 

Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate’er thy name, 

That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, 

For which we bear to live, or dare to die.” 

Pope. 

The little town of Charlton- Cleeve had an unusually 
picturesque appearance on this Saturday evening of 
Dick Travers’s visit. 

To begin with, it was always picturesque, always 
well groomed, as Dick’s guard would have said. 
The streets were clean. The general tone of colour 
was brown. The houses were mostly brick with 
stone facings. The town was one broad street, with 
a bridge at the end of it. The houses were chiefly 
of the Queen Anne period of architecture. They 
gave right on the street, some with flne iron gates, 
all with gardens in the rear ; all backed by trees, 
all with flowers in their windows, all clean and neat 
with spick-and-span white blinds, all well-to-do. 

There had been some kind of festival the day be- 
fore, and one or two flags were still waving in the 
wind, giving that additional touch of the picturesque 
8 


114 


TBE PmnCESS MAZAEOFE 


which marked its clean old-world appearance on 
this occasion. 

Moreover, Saturday night was somewhat of a 
holiday night. 

The men had received their wages ; they strolled 
about the streets or took an extra glass at the ale- 
house. The women were more or less in the streets, 
some of them shopping, some of them keeping com- 
pany with their young men. 

The evening was fine, with a breeze from the 
river that tempered the summer heat. There was 
not a cloud in the sky. It was one of those evenings 
when you might look for a long lovely twilight. 
Everything was peaceful, the town as serene as the 
sky. Everybody seemed happy. There did not 
appear to be an anxious face in the streets or at the 
doors and windows. Here and there the townsfolk 
stood at their doors gossiping with their neighbours ; 
here and there a woman sat at her window half 
hidden behind clusters of roses, fuschias, Canterbury 
bells, and lupins, mending clothes or darning linen 
for the Sunday. 

So quiet and peaceful was it all, so uneventful the 
place, that when there resounded on the outskirts 
of the long street the sound of a coaching horn, 
everybody paused to listen and to look, and there 
was a subdued hum of applause and admiration as 
the Travers coach came swinging round from the 
broad highway into the equally broad street of 
Charlton-Cleeve. 

On the box-seat, in grey frock-coat, a rose in his 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


115 


buttonhole, sat Dick Travers, his sister Gerty by 
his side, with blush roses in her hat and blush roses 
in her cheeks. They were a handsome couple, 
brother and sister, happy, young, full of health and 
spirits. On the next seat, grey but hearty, lithe and 
bright, with earnest eyes and cleanly shaven face, 
sat the father of the happy couple. Sir Gordon 
Travers, calmly enjoying a cigar, and expressing 
silent approval of all he saw. 

Dick’s team consisted of four greys, and they 
moved along as if with one step, like soldiers on the 
march. It was not necessary that Dick should put 
such horses well together ; they knew what was 
required of them. They kept up a level steady pace. 
You might have laid a pack of cards upon their 
backs, they would have ridden without a spill. It 
was like machinery. This was the verdict of the 
lookers-on. They had never seen such a team, 
never such a whip, never by the way heard such a 
horn ; the guard, Tom Williams, played a tune upon 
it that was full of the gay cheerful spirit of the horn 
and had all the masterful go of the trumpet. The 
coach was as neat and artistic as a coach out of a 
picture; red the prevailing colour, red and black 
and silver harness ; and the horses seemed to be 
just as proud of it as Dick was of them. He saluted 
the astonished Charlton -Cleevers respectfully with 
his whip, and the team cantered with a musical 
rhythm in the tramp of their ringing shoes over the 
bridge, and disappeared as if the whole thing had 
been a vision. 


116 THE PEINCESS MAZABOFF. 

“They must be going to Cleeve House or to 
Charlton Manor,” said one of the wiseacres, “ or they 
be goin’ right on through to Malvern ; I dunno, 
don’t ax I ; if they be somethin’ out of a picter and 
ain’t natural at all, a sort of Will-o’-the-wisp as one 
hears tell on, I wouldn’t be surprised.” 

But they were real enough, coach and horses, 
driver, passengers, grooms, guard, and luggage too ; 
and they pulled up fresh as paint at the gates of 
Charlton Manor, right under the rookery where the 
crows and their families were cawing to each other 
their good-nights ; for like the good people of 
Charlton- Cleeve, they retired early, and they knew 
it was Sunday on the morrow and that they would 
be up early for the morning hymn. Queer birds, 
these black gentry of the tall elms, they knew all 
about Saturday and Sunday just as well as if they 
had children to wash, and clothes to put out, for 
Sunday school and church ; and when they were at 
roost, after the arrival of the Travers coach, they 
talked about it until they went to sleep, and won- 
dered what it might portend, arriving with so much 
ostentation of horn and silver trappings on this 
particular Saturday evening. 

The coach, as we have seen, created some sensa- 
tion in Charlton- Cleeve, but when the horses came 
to a stand, and guard and two grooms in quiet 
liveries dropped to the ground, the Rector’s men 
received it as if they were accustomed to put up 
coaches and horses all their lives. The Rector’s 
stable-man had recruited his hands from the Green 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 117 

Dragon in the town, and Dick’s Yorkshire guard, 
who was no end of a whip himself, was not a little 
astonished at the efficiency of the Cleeve Manor 
helps, and at the excellent appointment of the 
stables. He agreed with the local grooms that the 
Rector was something like a parson, though the 
sententious ostler from the Green Dragon said the 
fact was Mr. Tremont was not like a parson at all, 
that was where his stables and his ’osses came in ; 
not that he had anything to say against parsons, for 
they were a good sort so far as he knew anything of 
them, hut their call was not in the direction of ’osses 
and coaches, and fishing and shooting, though Mr. 
Tremont did all that and more, and he was a most 
whacking scholar to hoot, for he not only had the 
biggest lot o’ books in the county, but he’d heard it 
said, and he believed it, as he’d read every mortal 
one of ’em. 

While the stable-man and the helps swashed about 
with buckets of water, and shisshed and shisshed 
with sponges all over the horses and rubbed them 
down, and washed out their mouths and otherwise 
made a great noise of purring and swisshing, and the 
horses responded with curious bubbling noises and 
stamping of hoofs and lashing of tails, the Rector 
received his guests, almost embracing Dick, shaking 
hands heartily with Sir Gordon, and handing Miss 
Travers over to the housekeeper with many admo- 
nitions as to the young lady’s requirements and 
comforts. 

« It is indeed a great delight to have you here, 


118 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


Dick,” said Tremont following him into his chamber 
which overlooked a fine stretch of meadow lands 
and picturesque hedgerows, backed by the Breddon 
Hills, which filled the far distance of the landscape, 
soft and grey against the evening sky. 

“ My dear old chap,” said Travers, “ when I look 
at you I could feel as if we had never parted.” 

“ Yet we are both a good deal changed,” said 
Tremont. 

“I am ; you are just the same studious, wise- 
looking fellow, and there is the same big heart beat- 
ing beneath your waistcoat.” 

“ You were always too prejudiced a friend, Dick, 
ever to see any of my faults.” 

“By Jove, you never had any, except that you 
were too much of a stay-at-home, too much of a 
bookworm. As for me, oh, don’t talk of me, I am 
stained with the world’s dirt, with the world’s bar- 
barism ; nothing anchors me, that is my trouble, I 
must always be on the move. I fear that will be 
the rock I and my father will split upon, if we ever 
do split.” 

“ Which you never will, Dick, you love him too 
well, he is too devoted to you.” 

“ He wishes me to settle down now, as he calls it ; 
the iron works want looking after, the estate has 
grown, he and some capitalists have a great scheme 
on hand for Africa ; that is my one hope, they may 
want me to go out again to see after that. The 
truth is I am a backwoodsman, a pioneer, an ex- 
plorer, a wanderer, an adventurer j I was going to 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 119 

say a waster, to use a Yorkshire phrase, a ne’er-do- 
well.” 

“Not a bit of it, old fellow, you only have the 
same instincts and inclinations that Raleigh, Gilbert, 
Cabot, Cook, Speke, Grant, Stanley, and Livingstone 
and the rest have had ; and surely it is a noble trait, 
and a useful one. But I can understand that it 
upsets your father’s plans, and I feel with him 
that it is hard to part with you. There has not 
been a day, my dear Dick, that I have not thought 
of you.” 

“ I can almost say the same of you, old fellow,” 
said Dick. “ Once or twice in a tight place I had 
not time to think of you ; otherwise you were con- 
tinually in my mmd, and I often said when we came 
upon something more than usually remarkable, by 
Jove, I should like Tremont to see this ; and I hope 
you got the curios and things I sent you.” 

“ Of course I did. I made an exhibition of some 
of them in the school-room here, and delivered a 
little lecture about them, and told my enthusiastic 
audience that I hoped one day to introduce the donor 
of them to Charlton- Cleeve. 

“ That’s too bad,” Dick said, laughing and laying 
his great right hand upon his host’s shoulder. “ I 
did expect you would let me be ; I did not think 
that you would make a show of me. I felt I should 
have peace and quiet at Cleeve Manor anyhow.” 

“ Well, dear friend, and so you shall if you like. 
Surely nothing could be quieter than your recep- 
tion” 


120 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Nothing more like dear old Jack Tremont,” said 
the traveller, “ Parson Tremont now, eh ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, if you like. They call me the Rector, 
but in a general way I don’t think they have any 
great opinion of me as a parson ; they forgive me 
on account of my popular and venerable curate, who 
is orthodox, industrious, and domesticated. You 
know I never was much of a theologian.” 

“ I don’t know anything of the kind. I know you 
were considered to be a most learned pundit. There 
was hardly a don that was in it with you, there was 
not a coach who did not compare notes with you, 
and there was not a modest fellow in all Oxford 
who could hold a candle to you.” 

“Nonsense, Dick, I am really very ignorant of 
most things. It is true I find an endless pleasure 
in books ; it is true I know all about what may be 
called the literature of theology, but what is all 
this? How comes it that we are talking about me, 
you are the hero of the day, and best of all you are 
my guest, with your wallet full of stories and ad- 
ventures, and yet I feel as if I wanted to talk about 
nothing so much as the old days when we were boys 
and college chums. 

Dick had flung himself down upon a great old- 
fashioned sofa. Tremont had taken a seat facing 
him, and they had gone on chattering like a couple 
of women, forgetful of all the world but themselves. 
It seemed to them as if they had scarcely exchanged 
words of greeting when the warning gong for dress- 
ing buzzed and hummed, soft and musical along the 
corridor. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 121 

“ Dinner in half an hour,” said the host rising, “ I 
must leave you now. I will look in upon your father 
and see if he finds his room comfortable. The 
Manor House has nothing much to boast of, but it is 
cosy. It was my dear father’s constant study to 
make the place homelike, as he said, not sumptuous, 
but homelike.” 

“ So far as I can see it is both. Jack, and if it were 
a hovel it would be good enough for me if it were 
good enough for you.” 

The Rector shook his friend’s hand once more, 
and leaving him to Mellish, who had been lay- 
ing out his clothes in the dressing-room, went 
off along a balustraded staircase of light-coloured 
old oak to the chamber assigned to Sir Gordon 
Travers. 

“ May I come in ? ” he asked, tapping at the door 
and partly opening it. 

“ Of course you may,” said a genial voice, with a 
note of decision in it ; a voice that seemed to say, 
“ Make no mistake about me, I am a business man, 
one having authority ; ” and this was characteristic 
of Sir Gordon in all his relations of life. He was 
proud but not arrogant ; he liked to refer to his an- 
cestry ; though it was only a yeoman ancestry ; he 
loved work, and liked other people to love it ; he 
was anything but an emotional man, and would have 
been ashamed of exhibiting anything like emotion 
which he regarded as weak and unmanly ; he was, 
nevertheless, fully capable of the sincerest and most 
warm affection. 


1*22 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

The Rector entered to find Sir Gordon tying his 
white cravat and dividing his attention between the 
looking-glass and the oat-look across the Rectory 
grounds and meadows. 

“ If you may not come in who may ? ” said Sir 
Gordon laughing. “What a fine place you have 
here, timber right down to the river, and such tim- 
ber ! By George, sir, I like to see a bit of good tim- 
ber ; you call the elm your forest weed in these parts 
I believe, it is a weed to be proud of ; glad to see 
you take pleasure in your park.” 

“ Oh, yes ; I don’t know anything more satisfac- 
tory than woods, and fields, and water for a stay-at- 
home,” said the Rector, rather to encourage Sir 
Gordon to talk than in the way of contributing 
anything important to the conversation. 

“Not too much feed in the meadows, but the 
weather has been dry. I’ll be sworn you found 
everything in the completest order when you took 
possession.” 

“Yes, indeed I did, -Sir Gordon,” the Rector re- 
plied. 

“ Your father had my ideas about managing an 
estate. I met him in the north, I remember, and we 
had a glorious talk. He was a parson, but he was 
a man of business, a good farmer. And why not ? 
Old Harry the Eighth, I believe it was, who passed 
a law against parsons doing a bit of trade ; but as 
I say, there is nothing in the Bible against it, and I 
like the cloth to set a good example on their farms ; 
I know you are of my mind, but what a fellow I am, 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAEOFF. 123 

my tongue is going like a water-wheel, flow do 
you think Dick is looking ? ” 

“ Oh, remarkably well ; a little older than when 
we parted, bronzed too, but with the same brisk 
animal spirits that made him welcome everywhere 
at Oxford.” 

“ Yes, he’s a fine chap, Dick, no doubt about it. 
I needn’t say that I am proud of him.” 

“ And I, too, am proud of him,” said the Rector 
heartily. 

“ Yes, I know it, and I thank you ; until she was 
engaged our Gerty used to say she was jealous of 
you.” 

“ Gerty ! ” said the Rector inquiidngly. 

“ My only girl, you assisted her off the coach, 
Gertrude ; we always call her Gerty, and Dick says 
she looks the name. Perhaps she does, she is down- 
right Yorkshire, and Selby flowarth — well, he is a 
very quiet sort of young fellow; some folks take 
him for a fool ; but they’ll burn their fingers one 
day, not a doubt about it, people who take Selby 
for a fool ; he is engaged to Gerty.” 

“ I am sorry he did not come with you,” said the 
Rector. 

« Oh, I don’t know,” said Sir Gordon, “ we can get 
on without him ; I suppose one of these days you 
will be giving the Rectory a mistress, eh ? Cleeve 
must be a trifie lonely for a bachelor.” 

“ One never knows what may happen,” said the 
Rector smiling ; “ but I am not lonely. When you 
see my library you will quite understand that.” 


124 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF, 


“ Yes, yes, books are good companions,” said Sir 
Gordon, “ but men and women are the best books 
to study, though the books of a big concern such as 
the Middlesborough works are not to be despised, I 
can tell you. It’s just as you are brought up in 
these things, a matter of temperament, I suppose ; 
but as for me, my Yorkshire farms and my blazing 
furnaces are the finest books and pictures I know.” 

“ One can see where Dick gets his energy and his 
animal spirits,” said the Rector. 

“ They are natural to the Travers family, but be- 
tween you and me and the gatepost, Tremont, I fear 
Dick has not what we call staying powers ; he likes 
changes, he is never at rest, I want to get him down 
solid and square to business. If hunting and shoot- 
ing, and coaching, and breaking in horses, and trav- 
elling to the North Pole was business, why Dick 
would be a master man, I make no doubt ; but — ah, 
well, we’ll say no more about that ; we are out for 
what Dick calls fun, and I must say I am enjoy- 
ing it just as much as either he or Gerty.” 

“ I am glad of it,” said the Rector, looking at his 
watch. “ I had no idea it was so late. I can dress 
in five minutes, that is fortunate ; dinner at seven, 
but we allow ten minutes grace. Au revoirP 
Presently the gong that had hummed its half- 
hour warning sent forth a soft musical invitation 
to dinner. It was a pleasant sound to Dick and 
Gerty, both hungry, both dressed and feeling “ fit,” 
as Dick remarked, while they were descending the 
grand old stair to the hall that was hall and draw- 


THE P BIN CESS MAZABOFF. 126 

ing-room, lounge, reception and breakfast-room all 
in one : not that there was any lack of accommoda- 
tion in the Manor House but that the hall was the 
pleasantest, snuggest, and most picturesque of its 
many apartments. It was an agreeable sound to 
Sir Gordon, the Manor House gong, for the York- 
shire baronet confessed to himself that he was as 
hungry as a hunter. Upon Evelyn the hummmg 
sound of the gong had on this never-to-be-forgotten 
occasion made an unusual impression . The fabulous 
history of the instrument came strangely into her 
mind as she had once heard Tremont relate it, with 
Indian temples and dusky warriors in the narrative, 
and a Hindoo maiden who was sacrificed at some 
barbaric rite. The vibrations of the thin worn 
metal found a weird kind of response in her own 
anatomy. She did not remember the Indian story of 
the antique relic, but she felt it. The mystery and 
sentiment of it touched her like a pathetic memory. 
There was a wail in the sound, and a murmur half 
mirthful and half tearful. She wondered what this 
feeling might forebode, for it was her habit to notice 
and observe anything that was odd or unusual in 
whatever she might see or feel. There was in her 
mind an active spirit of inquiry, and she was very 
susceptible to infiuences that some persons would 
call superstition. 

“Why what is the matter, Evelyn?^’ her aunt 
asked as they turned to go into the hall. 

“ Nothing, dear, excex)t that the story of the 
gong suddenly came into my mind ; don’t you 


126 


TBB PBIBCESS MAZABOFF. 


remember Mr. Tremont narrating it one night in 
the winter ? ” 

“ Some nonsense about a Hindoo rite and a tribal 
massacre ? A Christmas story, a legend, made up I 
dare say for his father’s benefit when he bought the 
gong, for the benefit of the dealer, I should say ; it 
is probably not an old gong to begin with ; whether 
it is or not I don’t see why it should make you 
shiver. I remember Winnington used to shiver 
like that sometimes, and he would remark, m his 
odd way, ‘ somebody’s walking over my grave ! ’ ” 

“ Did I shiver ? ” asked Evelyn smiling. 

“Yes, most decidedly, and on a hot day such as 
this to shiver means that you have taken cold ; 
let me advise you, dear, when the men take their 
thimbleful of sherry and bitters to take a little 
wine yourself.” 

“Now you do make me shiver,” said Evelyn 
smiling. “ Believe me I am quite well, dear, I never 
felt better. What a lovely place it is, this old house 
of the Tremonts ! By the way where is he, our 
gracious host as you call him ? ” 

“ A thousand apologies,” said Tremont, entering 
as Evelyn asked the question, “I really did not 
know that you had arrived ; and furthermore the 
truth is I became so engrossed in a chat with 
Travers that I hardly gave myself my usual five 
minutes to dress.” 

“ No need for apology,” said Mrs. Somers, “ I hope 
we are sufficiently at home at the Manor House.” 

“ Why, of course, of course,” chimed in Somers, 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 127 

who had been examining an Indian sword, part of a 
little trophy of weapons in a recess by the ingle- 
nook. 

But let us describe the scene before the chief guest 
of the occasion enters. 


128 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF, 


CHAPTER IX. 

A FATEFUL MEETING. 

“ The world is not so large but that we shall meet again; nor 
so dark, but when we meet we’ll know each other. I would I 
knew thy name that I might broider it for a token.” 

Philomel's Comedy. 

“A man who invites friends to dinner and takes no personal 
interest in his dinner, is not worthy of friendship.” 

Brillat Savarin, 

The hall of Charlton Manor was one of the notable 
features of the house. A large square room with a 
great triple diamond-paned bay window, its outlook 
was upon the Rectory flower garden, which on this 
summer evening was gay and sweet. On the south 
side the hall was entered, from both the drawing 
and dining-rooms, by doorways hidden behind rich 
portieres. At the east end the great staircase 
opened upon it, and on the left of the staircase there 
was a doorway into the front hall that gave upon 
the carriage drive from the highway. 

The walls were hung with tapestries. Here and 
there a trophy of arms broke the straight lines of 
the room. On the western side there was an old- 
fashioned ingle-nook, adapted to modern taste and 


THE PiillfCESS MAZAnOFE. 129 

requirements, with eosy seats and mysterious cup- 
boards. The whole effect of the place was one of 
artistic comfort. There were old oak seats and 
cabinets, and in the ingle-nook an ancient settle. 
The bay window was furnished with a fitted lounge. 
Everything was in order and in keeping with a 
general plan and design. There was not a chair 
that did not seem to mvite use ; not an oaken seat 
without rich cushions. The hard, firm, polished 
fioor was covered with Persian and Turkey rugs ; 
and in a corner of the room near the bay window 
was a small square piano and a pretty single- action 
harp. Tremont was a musician as well as a biblio- 
pole, and indeed, he had many accomplishments that 
belong to indoor as well as outdoor life. If he had 
extolled his college chum’s knowledge of natural 
history, it was largely for the reason that he being 
also learned in that direction, appreciated all the 
more his friend’s more ample knowledge. 

When that soft, silvery- toned gong, which had so 
curious a charm for Evelyn Somers, touched the 
warm atmosphere of the Manor House with its gen- 
tle vibrations, there were assembled in the hall most 
of the guests on this notable evening of our story. 
Evelyn, in a soft white Indian muslin gown over 
white silk, with a spray of pink carnations, was a 
picture of aristocratic English beauty. Her bodice 
was cut low, trimmed with a fiuffy frill of the mus- 
lin .of her dress mixed with tiny bouquets of the pink 
carnations, and she wore a single necklace of pearls. 
Her brown hair was dressed high upon her well- 
9 


130 The princess mazaroef. 

shaped head ; her face was pale, but her lips were 
“ ruddier than the cherry,” and her brown eyes were 
bright with an eloquent intelligence. She was tall, 
her figure round and graceful ; her face was oval, 
she had, for a woman, a strong chin, but it was not 
pointed. On a first acquaintance you would have 
thought the lady of a very calm disposition, one of 
those typical English beauties that belong to the 
statuesque order, incapable of enthusiasm, accom- 
plished as a matter of course, but without any 
special character or individuality. You would have 
been wrong. Only interest her, only engage her 
understanding, and you would have found her 
human to her fingers’ ends, natural, womanly, and 
gentle, despite her English characteristics of social 
pose and reticence. She was a curious mixture, 
this handsome, lovable, independent-minded daugh- 
ter of Cleeve House. 

Evelyn was sitting by the window, the lower bays of 
which were open to the summer evening and its 
summer perfumes. She was talking with Mr. Edward 
Wykeham, who in faultless evening dress, with 
white waistcoat and button hole of white rosebuds, 
was listening with marked attention to his host’s fair 
daughter, only now and then saying a word or two 
himself, and always, with his customary suggestion 
of a stammer, and with his self-conscious, if dep- 
recatory smile. His hair was carefully brushed, 
just showing the hint of a parting in the middle, and 
his side whiskers were neatly trimmed and cropped. 
Just as there were regular pauses in his speech, which 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


131 


almost amounted to a stammer, so there were semi- 
colons in his movements ; he was not graceful, but 
he was Edward Wykeham, and could never be mis- 
taken for any one else. 

Mrs. Burford AV^innington was in gorgeous array 
— a red brown shot-silk dress, with a fussy head- 
dress and jewels galore ; she was in what her brother 
Somers had described to his wife as full war-paint 
She looked the part of what the villagers would have 
described as the town lady. Her face was radiant, 
not only with her natural good health but with rouge, 
delicately laid on, it is true, and givmg artistic effect 
to her slightly pencilled eyebrows, and the almost 
imperceptible shadow, beneath her naturally bright 
and sparkling grey eyes, about which the wrinkles 
could not be disguised,' and of which the fascinating 
widow need not have been ashamed, for they were 
genial and generous. She was reclining in an easy- 
chair by the ingle-nook, where the fii-eplace was now 
red and white with fresh- gathered roses, and she was 
engaged in some passing badinage about dress and 
fashion and making up the face with Mr. Grafton 
Somers, who, still adhering to an old- fashion, wore 
a blue dress coat with brass buttons, made rather 
high in collar. His fascinating sister was telling 
him that there was more affectation in his old-fashion, 
than dressing in the height of the modern style, and 
she declared that he wore the blue and gold for the 
reason that they became his white hair, and his well- 
trimmed beard. There is no doubt, as Sir Gordon 
Travers would have remarked, that Somers was a 


132 the princess mazaroff. 

distinguished- looking old fellow, with his high white 
neckcloth, his blue coat, and his bunch of rattling 
seals and keys. 

For that matter, Travers was a distinguished- 
lookmg personage himself ; more supple of build 
than Somers, with a more elastic step, greyer hair, 
and he was shorn of beard and whiskers. He had a 
shrewd, keen eye, this Yorkshire baronet, a firm 
mouth, the lips close together, steel-blue eyes, a nose 
that endorsed the strong will of the mouth, and yet 
he had a pleasant smile. He walked somewhat 
stiffly, planted his feet down firmly, had none of the 
peculiarities of the old man. His. laugh was hearty, 
his opinions clean-cut and well expressed. He 
carried no superfiuous fat as Somers did, he might 
have sat for the portrait of a veteran cavalry offlcer ; 
and there was in his speech a touch of the northern 
dialect that gave breadth to his character and point 
to his ways. 

Sir Gordon was standing with his back to the 
fireplace, warming himself at the bunches of roses, 
and his daughter was sitting in the ingle-nook, 
maintaining the illusion and smiling all the time 
as if the joke was her own. She was a pretty, if 
not very distinguished-looking little girl, with fresh 
complexion, dark eyes and hair, full red lips, and a 
quick expression of intelligence ; she was character- 
istically attired in a soft yellow silk, trimmed with 
marguerite daisies and with ornaments of amber 
beads and brooch of topaz and diamonds. 

The host was hovering about, chatting with one 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 1^3 

and the other. He could not if he would conceal 
the pleasure he felt with himself and everybody else. 
His meditative face was full of an unusual expres- 
sion of alertness. His mouth, usually betokening 
calm and quiet, seemed ready to break out into 
smiles. There was an intimation of satisfaction even 
in his walk. It was a remarkable face, the complex- 
ion sallow, the mouth large but delicately shaped, 
the upper lip slightly projecting, the chin well 
formed, neither flat nor round, the nose somewhat 
broad, the eyebrows rather wide apart, the forehead 
square and ample, thick dark hair, eyes somewhat 
sunken and of a hazel hue, clear and bright, the gen- 
eral effect of the Rector’s appearance tending to a 
combination of wisdom and benevolence. He looked 
like a man whom you could trust, whose word was 
his bond, like one who knew things ; and he was in 
truth a man of great learning, great breadth of 
thought and catholicity of ideas, a philosopher and 
of a most generous disposition. This had indeed 
been proved by his not only retaining his father’s 
curate, and giving him most of his stipend, but in 
resigning to him the theological uifluence of the 
rectorship, and not in any way disturbing the good 
feeling which Mr. Ogden had established between 
himself and the orthodox parishioners who consti- 
tuted his charge. Tremont conflned his duties 
chiefly to looking after the sick and needy, paying 
the traditional subscriptions of the Rectory to char- 
ities and public institutions, and sustaining the local 
distinction in the sports and pastimes of the county. 


134 the princess mazaboff. 

The inviting if plaintive music of the soft-toned 
gong had hardly ceased when Dick Travers entered 
the hall, making a striking appearance, the tallest 
man in the room, with a white carnation in his coat, 
and genial apologies in his somewhat flushed face. 

“ You don’t mean to say I have kept you wait- 
ing?” he said, coming forward with a frank, free 
manner ; “ I am very sorry, but the truth is ” 

“ You have not kept us waiting, my dear fellow,” 
said the Rector, cutting Dick’s apology short ; “ let 
me introduce you.” 

Evelyn saw Dick as he entered the room. For a 
moment her heart stood still with a sudden thrill of 
expectation. When he spoke she turned a shade 
paler. Then her heart began to beat quickly, and 
her face grew hot, her lips dry. It was not only 
Tremont’s hero that had arrived ; it was Evelyn’s 
hero, the hero of the Place Vendome ; he whose face 
had so often come into her mind of late and more 
especially when Tremont had been describing to her 
the noble characteristics of Richard Travers, his 
college companion and friend and pioneer, who had 
tramped through Africa, and might, had he been so 
inclined, have been everybody’s hero ; for his work 
had made a great impression in England, and many 
societies and institutions were desirous of publicly 
acknowledging it. Dick would have none of it. He 
hated fuss and worry, and in his own estimation he 
had done nothing in particular; though he had 
added a river, sundry lakes, a range of mountains, 
several tribes of savages and quite a number of new 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 135 

objects in natural history, to the world’s knowledge 
of Central Africa. 

Travers did not see Evelyn until Tremont pre- 
sented him to her ; and then pausing for a moment 
and looking round at the company he said, “ Miss 
Somers, I am delighted, I assure you.” 

There was something constrained in his manner. 
Tremont noticed it. He also saw that Evelyn was 
confused. 

« I think we have met before,” Dick said, as he 
took Evelyn’s hand and held it for a moment. 

“Yes,” she answered, and then turning to her 
father she said, “ don’t you remember the proud 
gentleman who would not accept our thanks, in 
Paris?” 

“ What ! ” said Mr. Somers, “ why, bless me, 
1 thought I had seen Mr. Travers before; saved 
our lives and declined our thanks; thought our 
lives so worthless that they were not worth a 
thankee, eh ? ” 

“ My dear sir, forgive me,” Dick replied, taking 
hold of the collar of his coat and tugging at it as if 
it was of importance that he should adjust the set of 
it, “I thought those Frenchmen would think we 
English were not accustomed to do a little act of 
courtesy without making a show of it.” 

“ A little act of courtesy ! ” said Somers, “ that’s 
a good joke ; throwing yourself at the heads of tw'O 
infernal, ill-broken, runaway horses a little act of 
courtesy ! a big act of courage T call it. I don’t be- 
fieve, Travers (turning to Sir Gordon), we should 


1 36 the princess 3IAZA H OFF. 

have been here to-night had it not been for your 
son.” 

“ Indeed,” said Sir Gordon, “ why this is the first 
time I ever heard of it ; what is it ? ” 

“ Oh, nothing,” said Dick. “ Miss Somers and 
her father were alarmed, and they really exaggerate 
the fact that I just stopped their horses and enabled 
them by a little timely assistance to catch the train 
for Dover.” 

“ That is a very generous way of describing what 
you did,” said Evelyn. “ Will you show me your 
left hand?” 

« Why, are you gomg to begin fortune- telling be- 
fore dinner?” said Somers laughing. “I thought 
that was a study to be considered over coffee.” 

“ As he turned his back upon us, Mr. Tremont,” 
Evelyn said, addressing the Rector, “ after he had 
rendered us that trifling act of courtsey, he was 
tying his hand up in his handkerchief. I know he 
was hurt, though he said he was not.” 

“ Indeed, you thought more of the affair than it 
deserved,” said Dick ; “ my hand is the hand of a 
backwoodsman, a traveller who has roughed it. 
Pray let us talk of something else.” 

“ Then suppose we go in to dinner,” said the Rector, 
“ and will you give your arm to Miss Somers ? you 
can compare notes before the coffee ; and you. Sir 
Gordon, I shall bestow Mrs. Somers upon you. Mr. 
Wykeham will be good enough to take Mrs. Burford 
Winnington ; and as the youngest man in the room, 
Mr. Somers, I shall honour you with Miss Travers. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


137 


There now, I shall look on and see that you are all 
happy. You must tell Mr. Somers all about York- 
shire, Miss Travers.” 

The little Yorkshire girl smiled and took the arm 
that Somers gallantly offered her, as he thought of 
a time years and years ago, when he would have 
promised himself an evening’s flirtation with such 
a girl as Gerty. 

A servant drew the portiere, the dining-room 
door opened and the company emerged from the 
twilight of a summer room into a well-lighted dining- 
room, though the blinds were not drawn, for Tremont 
was unconventional in most of his household arrange- 
ments, and it was pleasant to see the last flush of 
the sunset behind the hills that shut in the Charlton 
Valley from the world of strife and trouble ; or at 
least appeared to do so, for after all, the most secluded 
and happy-looking country may conceal in the heart- 
of its most delightful retreats the active seed of 
strife and trouble. 

A great contrast to the hall was the dining-room 
of Charlton Manor. It had, however, a similar 
arrangement of windows. They were deep bays 
with seats in them ; but the room was furnished in 
a lighter manner than the hall. At the same time 
it was not without a certain severity that charac- 
terises the English salle d manger : a fine oak mantel- 
piece, bronzes, oil-paintings, parquette floor with 
rich Turkey carpet, palms by the fireplace, noble 
wine-coolers. The table was bright with Avhite cut- 
glass, white porcelain plates, white porcelain and 


138 the PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 

silver centre-pieces, and sweet with a low bank of 
flowers. 

“ A regular sybarite, this young parson,” said Sir 
Gordon to himself, as two sleek waiters under the 
watchful eye of the butler, handed round some 
singularly flne clear turtle soup. 

“Is this your flrst visit to Charlton- Cleeve, Sir 
Gordon ? ” asked Mrs. Somers in her soft, pleasant 
voice. 

“ Yes, it is, Mrs. Somers,” said Sir Gordon, squeez- 
ing a lemon into his soup, and accepting the glass 
of punch which the butler offered him, “ and I find 
it most agreeable.” 

“ Your place is in Yorkshire? ” she said, taking 
her soup without paying any attention to the punch. 

“ Old Hall, yes. I shall hope to see you and Mr. 
Somers there. Dick shall bring his coach for you.” 

“ Dear me, what a drive I ” 

“ He would think nothing of it, I assure you,” 
said Sir Gordon, “ nothing, if you did not consider it 
too far.” 

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Somers. “I once drove 
from Bristol all through Devonshire, years ago with 
Grafton. I don’t know anything more gratifying in 
fine weather.” 

“ No ; after all, there is something to be said for 
the coaching days ; rather slow ; you had to have 
plenty of time on your hands.” 

“Lovely place,” said Wykeham mentally, as he 
stretched his legs under the great oak table ; “ great 
hand at feeding, the church — the old Wykehams 


TBE princess MAZAROFF. 139 

knew all about it — the young ’uns are not un- 
appreciative.” 

“ Did you speak to me?” asked Mrs. Winnington 
in a low voice, as she bent over her soup. 

“ No, madame,” said Wykeham, “ but I will if you 
wish it.” 

“ That is as you please,” said the widow ; “ very 
good soup.” 

“ First-rate,” said Wykeham, “ beats the Ship and 
Turtle.” 

“ Does it really ! I always like dining at the 
Manor House.” 

“ It is delightful — so is any place where you are, 
Mrs. Winnington,” said Wykeham, who had made up 
his mind, from the moment he stepped into the tram 
at Paddington on this his latest visit to the Cleeve 
Mansion, to push his fortunes with Mrs. Burford 
Winnington, whom he loved with the first love of 
a young man who sees in somebody’s widow a jolly 
companion and a woman of experience who knows 
how to make the most of her charms and the best 
of life, and who, furthermore, is not without means. 

“ Thank you, Mr. Wykeham,” said the widow, 
smiling under her breath as it were ; for something 
in Ted’s manner told her that before the night was 
over he would propose to her. He had pressed her 
arm as he brought her in to dinner. There was for 
so quiet a young man a sort of desperation in the 
way he looked at her, and he seemed to sit down 
with an extra force as if he was emphasising a de- 
cision at which he had recently arrived. 


140 the prikcess mazarofe. 

“ Very odd that Evelyn’s hero of the Place Ven- 
dome should be your dear friend of whom we have 
heard so much,” said Mrs. Somers to the Rector. 

“ Yes,” said Tremont, “ and curiously enough, only 
the other night Evelyn remarked that my descrip- 
tion of Travers recalled to her the Englishman whose 
acquaintance she tried to make after the accident.” 

“ Just like Dick,” said Sir Gordon, “to go off and 
repudiate thanks ; a very modest fellow, always was. 
I asked him how he had hurt his hand, and he said, 
‘ how does a fellow^get hurt among horses and dogs, 
not to mention savages and poisoned spears ? ’ but 
I dare bet he cut it on the curb of one of those Paris 
horses.” 

“ Has his left hand a bad scar ? ” asked Tremont. 

“ I should say it has ; anyhow, you can see that 
Dick did not think his band worthy of exhibition 
before ladies ; but he may have had another reason 
—his hands are a size larger than they make in 
most glove shops, I believe. By George ! Tremont, 
I can’t get my cook to do whitebait like this ,• they 
don’t devil it even at Greenwich as well as this.” 

“You have attended the ministerial dinners at 
Greenwich, I suppose. Sir Gordon ? ” asked Mrs. 
Somers. 

“Oh, yes, madame, one or two*, and very tiresome 
they were until the dinner was over. After all I 
don’t think there is any good dining outside pri- 
vate houses and clubs ; you are lucky in your che/\ 
Tremont.” 

Then turning to the butler Sir Gordon said. 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


141 


Thank you, I only drink champagne,” and address- 
ing Tremont he went on, “ I take champagne right 
through dinner, find it better than mixing wines ; it 
is a new fashion, I believe it is a wise one; our 
grandfathers as a rule kept to one wine but mostly 
drank that one wine to excess, I fear, after dinner ” 

“ Don’t take any wine at all ? ” said Mr. Grafton 
Somers to Miss Travers, “ well, you surprise me.” 

“ I don’t wear a blue ribbon, Mr. Somers, I might 
confer that honour upon myself and truly, but for 
one thing, blue does not suit my complexion, and I 
don’t see why one should ask the world at large 
to take an interest in the fact that one is a tee- 
totaller.” 

“ Quite so, my dear young lady, quite so,” replied 
Mr. Somers, commending to himself the Timbale de 
filets de sole^ and glancing at the menu to see what 
Tremont’s chef called the dish, “ I don’t know that 
young people require wine.” 

“ Kor old people either, Mr. Delaney says, and 
sometimes father gets quite angry with him.” 

“ And who is Mr. Delaney ? ” asked Somers, 
smacking his lips in a furtive way over a par- 
ticularly fine glass of hock. 

“He is the new curate at the village near Old 
Hall, who is so popular, not only there, but in York 
and Newcastle, where he lectures on temperance.” 

“ Oh, indeed ; Delaney — hardly a teetotal name 
is it ? ” 

“I don’t know,” said Gerty, “but he always wears 
his blue ribbon.” 


142 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Cailles escortees Ortolans Ceudrillon^'' said W'yke- 
ham to the widow, laying down the menu, “and 
delicious it is. Wonder where the Rector got his 
cook ? ” 

“ It is a lovely dinner,” replied Mrs. Burford 
Winnington, “and after all, my dear Mr. Wyke- 
ham, what is more charming than to give good 
dinners to your friends, especially when they are 
appreciative and know what a dinner is ? ” 

“ That is just what I was — thinking, Mrs. Win- 
nington — though I could not express it as well.” 

“ Do you know,” said the widow, resigning her 
plate to the servant, “ I sometimes think there is a 
little affectation in your self-disparagement, Mr. 
Wykeham.” 

“ Do you really ? then, don’t think so any more, 
for I assure you it is my — nature to he self-depre- 
catory.” 

“ Is it ? ” said the widow, “ well, perhaps it is, but 
you remind me of a friend of mine, a great speaker, 
who always gets off his orations by heart, but when 
he comes to a very important word that he knows 
will have special effect, he pauses and pretends to 
be thinking of it, when he knows it through and 
through. His perorations as a consequence are con- 
sidered to be masterpieces of natural eloquence.” 

“ And you think I am like him ? ” 

“Well, in some respects, but it is natural with 
you as you say, and with him it is art, natural art.” 

“ But, Mrs. Winnington, I never invented a — pero- 
ration in my life — as for being eloquent, I wish I 


TJSE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


14C 


were, for — several reasons — I know when I am 
talking to you, I am really and truly always in 
search of the best words in my — ^vocabulary — won’t 
you try the Mousse Beatrice f ” 

“ No, thank you.” 

“ The Terrine de canetoyi aux petits pois f ” 

“ No, thank you.” 

“ What a menu, is it not ? Asa rule a menu that 
is so particular and goes so much into detail — and 
French — generally heralds a rather questionable 
banquet ; have you not had that experience, Mrs. 
Winnington ? ” 

“ Yes, I think I have, but we are at Charlton 
Manor, Mr. Wykeham.” 

“That is another rebuke — thank you, we are 
getting on,” said Wykeham, “ hope I have not said 
anything outreP 

“ Not at all, you are good taste itself,” said the 
widow looking round to smile and flash her bright 
eyes upon him. 

“ Thank you,” said Wykeham, going for the 
terrine de cayieton, “ I confess I like a good dinner, 
and when I say that, I mean this kind of — dinner, 
something you might pay your last dollar for, and 
could not get even at — Delmonico’s, a dinner that 
would make Bignon faint to think of as an event, 
outside his restaurant — how is it done, Mrs. Win- 
nington ? ” 

“ Oh, don’t ask me, I am not the mistress of 
Charlton Manor ; but I once dined with your father, 
and ” 


144 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“Oh, don’t say that was a good dinner,” Wyke- 
ham interposed; “good for the reason that— you 
were there— yes, I know, but, oh, my dear old 
governor, bless him, he likes joints and — boiled 
mutton, rhubarb tart in the — season, and his cook 
only knows potatoes boiled or roasted — why, here 
we are only at the sourhet auporte^ the dinner is only 
— beginning. If we were at one of the places just 
mentioned, we should smoke a cigarette now.” 

Wykeham said this qpiiQ sotto voce^ and drank off 
the remainder of a glass of champagne with evident 
relish. 

“ I declare I believe he is fortifying himself,” the 
widow said to herself ; “ I hope he won’t think it 
necessary to do that ; I must encourage him ; I 
should very much dislike anything of that sort, such 
an excellent fellow as he is, with such a sense of 
the proprieties, and all that.” 

“ I am sure you will forgive an old fellow, who 
knows a good dinner and enjoys it,” said Sir Gordon 
to Tremont, as a dish of haricot verts and JBeurre 
Wlsiguy was placed before him ; “but I had no idea 
that Charlton Manor, or indeed any other manor in 
England, could give a guest a dinner such as this.” 

“ No ! Ah, well, there is not much to do in this 
out- of- the- way corner of the world, but we try to do 
what there is as well as we can ; do we not, Mrs. 
Somers ? ” 

“ Yes, indeed. Rector.” 

“ You have not visited Cleeve House yet,” said the 
Rector ; “ if we gave prizes for the best managed 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


145 


palace as we do for the best managed cottage, Mrs. 
Somers would have the brightest gold medal any 
honourable society could strike.” 

“ Yes, I have often thought of you. Miss Somers,” 
said Dick, who had not paid much attention to 
the delicious viands which his host had prepared in 
his honour ; “ and believe me I regretted immediately 
afterwards that I did not wait to learn your name 
and address.” 

“ It was very strange conduct,” Evelyn replied. 

“ It was very churlish,” said Dick quickly. 

“No, I will not say that,” Evelyn answered. 

“ I shall always feel it was,” said Dick. 

“ Englishmen abroad are odd,” Evelyn remarked. 

“ They are odd enough at home,” Dick answered. 

“ But abroad,” said Evelyn, “ they seem to think 
the eyes of the world are upon them.” 

“ Do you think so? ” 

“ You were more concerned about what the 
French people would think of us than with anything 
we might be thinking of you, or you of us, on that 
winter day in the Place Yendome.” 

“ That was my pride, you believe ? ” 

“ Well, not exactly ; let us call it your patriotism,” 
said Evelyn. 

“ In what respect was it patriotic. Miss Somers ? ” 

“ Well, you wanted to maintain the reputation 
of your countrymen for bravery and sangfroid, 
and ” 

“ Stupidity,” said Dick ; “ for it was very stupid 
of me to forego making a pleasant acquaintance.” 

10 


146 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

“I don’t think it was stupid, Mr. Travers, 
but ” 

“ My dear Miss Somers, it was stupid ; and it Ls not 
the first stupid thing by many that I have done both 
at home and abroad.” 

“ Nor the first brave one,” said Evelyn. 

“ 1 see we shall never quite agree about it,” Dick 
answered ; “ anyhow, I have had the opportunity of 
apologising, for which I am very glad, and the 
incident has at least made my visit to Charlton- 
Cleeve even more interesting and agreeable than I 
had expected.” 

“I have heard so much about you from Mr. 
Tremont that I seem to have been acquainted with 
you quite a long time.” 

“ You have had the advantage of me,” said Dick, 
“not that I have not heard of you : Tremont men- 
tioned you in the first letter I received on leaving 
Paris.” ^ 

“Indeed,” said Evelyn, toying with a frozen 
peach. 

“ Yes, it was a very welcome letter,” said Dick. 

“My father was one of Mr. Tremont’s father’s 
oldest friends.” 

“ Yes,” said Dick, “I only met him once.” 

Dick felt that there was a little constraint in his 
neighbour’s manner when she spoke of Tremont. 
Of course, he interpreted the constraint, if there 
were any, quite wrongly. “She is in love with 
Jack,” he thought ; “ does not want to speak about 
him herself, but would like to hear me talk of him. 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


147 


Well, she is a lovely girl : Jack is to be envied ; per- 
haps it is a good thing for him I did not say any 
more to her in Paris than to honour hei\ gracious 
words with a grunt of British pride. What am I 
thinking of ? ” He washed down his passing thought, 
whatever it was, with a deep draught of champagne. 

“ Do you stay long at Charlton ? ” Evelyn asked. 

“ A few days,” said Dick; “a few years, I think, 
if I might.” 

“ It is a pretty country ; but you are of a restless 
disposition.” 

“ Am I ? that is Tremont’s report of me, I suppose.” 

“Yes,” said Evelyn. 

“ Well, Jack can say anything he likes of me — I 
love him, he is my one dear friend.” 

“ He says the same of you.” 

“ Does he ? God bless him ! ” 

Evelyn toyed with her peach. 

“ You know what a good fellow he is,” said Dick. 

“ Yes,” replied Evelyn. 

“ One day, I suppose he will be bringing home a 
wife to sit at the head of his table,” said Dick, ven- 
turing upon one of those outspoken thoughts that 
would now and then come forth in spite of him. 

“ Do you think so ? ” Evelyn replied ; “ the gen- 
eral opinion in Charlton- Cleeve seems to be that 
Mr. Tremont is already a confirmed bachelor.” 

Dick could not mistake the tone in which this 
remark was made ; it said as plainly as could be, 
“Don’t imagine that I am ever likely to become 
Mrs. Tremont.” 


148 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Indeed ! ” said Dick, “ you surprise me.” 

“ Really ? ” said Evelyn, for the first time turning 
her brown eyes upon him, the light of which seemed 
to go straight to his heart, and he felt that he 
blushed. 

“ Yes ; I thought that ” said Dick, with a little 

stammer — “but there, of course, a fellow in Tre- 
mont’s position, young, rich, with both head and 
heart, a man of culture and accomplished ; one can 
only come to one conclusion about him.” And 
Dick’s eyes fell as Evelyn turned away and allowed 
the waiter to hand her a liqueur which she did not 
touch. 

Every now and then Tremont’s attention wandered 
towards Dick and Evelyn ; and later, when the 
ladies left the table, he could not help noticing the 
unmistakable glance of admiration and approval 
which Evelyn bestowed upon Dick, as she left the 
room. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF, 


149 


CHAPTER X. 

IN THE TWILIGHT. 

“And there is even happiness 
That makes the heart afraid.’’ 

Hood, 

“ Often do the spirits 

Of great events stride on before the events, 

And in to-day already walks to-morrow.” 

Coleridge. 

The ladies having withdrawn, the men drew their 
chairs around Tremont’s end of the table, and the 
host asked Sir Gordon if he would smoke, remark- 
ing at the same time that he always smoked the 
moment dinner was over ; and thereupon a servant 
handed him a low flat box of Havannahs, and offered 
him a light. 

“I hate to smoke with good wine,” said the 
baronet. 

“ Would you smoke with bad wine ! ” asked the 
host, smiling. 

“ Xo, and I can’t say for wine what the Scotch- 
man said of whiskey, that there is no bad whiskey, 
but that some whiskey is better than other whiskey.” 

“ A friend of mine,” remarked Wykeham, “ says 
he enjoys his dinner because of the cigar that follows 
it.” 


150 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Thank you ” said Dick, “ I will smoke.” 

Presently smoking was general, and Sir Gordon 
continued to pay attention to the champagne, insist- 
ing that it was a mistake to mix your liquors. Tre- 
mont poured a glass of benedictine into a small cup 
of coffee. Somers said he had never found any 
claret that was the worse for a very fine cigar. Dick 
was of the same opinion. Wykeham remarked that 
he generally took things as they came. Just as he 
took life, and he found that he got on very well ; he 
had never eaten a better dinner, if Mr. Tremont 
would forgive him for mentioning the fact, and there 
was a foolish idea in London that country gentlemen 
did not know much about cigars. 

Tremont laughed good-naturedly at Wykeham’s 
compliments, and presently many wreaths of smoke 
sailed calmly up to the panelled ceiling of the Manor 
house dining-room. 

The after-dinner talk was varied if it was not 
brilliant. Mr. Wykeham enlightened the table con- 
cerning stocks and company-mongering. Sir Gordon 
had something to say about the state of the country 
politically. Mr. Somers thought the government 
was doing vei*y well. Tremont listened with the 
courtesy of a thoughtful host ; and Dick seemed 
bent on resisting every effort to draw him out on 
the subject of pioneering. 

“ But you think there are commercial prospects 
out yonder?” asked Sir Gordon, who knew what 
his son thought, but desired to have him talk of his 
expedition. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


151 


“Undoubtedly,” Dick replied; “and nothing 
would give me greater satisfaction than to go out as 
the head of a great trading company.” 

This was exactly what Sir Gordon did not want 
Dick to say. 

“ Ah, that’s out of the question,” said Sir Gordon 
quickly ; “ your place is at home, Dick.” 

The father looked at Tremont as he expressed this 
emphatic opinion, and Tremont said he hoped so. 

“ Once a monk always a monk,” said Wykeham, 
in his deprecatory but more or less assertive man- 
ner, — “ once a traveller always a traveller.” 

“That’s just my opinion,” said Somers; “habit is 
the great thing ; once a man has acquired a taste for 
Africa I have heard say he can never give it up.” 

“ That’s nonsense ! Excuse me, Mr. Somers ; I 
don’t mean of course that what you say is nonsense, 
but that view of travel is ; a man is master of him- 
self,” said Sir Gordon. 

“ Not always,” said Somers, laughing. 

“ Why, you don’t mean to say you have any con- 
tention with that charmmg wife of yours ? ” said the 
baronet, willing to change the conversation, for he 
saw that Dick was in one of his wilful moods. 

“ A tyrant, sir — a tyrant, I assure you ; there 
never was a more henpecked mortal than your hum- 
ble servant. Isn’t that so, Tremont?” said Somers. 

“ My dear Sir Gordon, Mrs. Somers is one of the 
sweetest women in the world, and Somers is the 
happiest of my parishioners,” Tremont replied. 

“ That’s a fact,” said Somers — “ I mean as regards 


152 the princess mazaboff, 

Mrs. Somers ; and as for me, well, when my sister, 
Mrs. Winnington, does not come down from London 
to revise our manners and customs, I may say I am 
indeed a happy man.” 

“I wish Mrs. Winnington could have heard you 
make that reservation as to the happiness of Cleeve 
House,” said the Rector. 

“She could not have heard it, I suspect,” re- 
marked Wykeham in an undertone, “ because Mr. 
Somers would not have said it in her presence — 
would you?” 

“ I tell you what it is, Mr. Wykeham, you are a very 
quiet, pleasant kind of fellow ; but of late you seem 
to be ranking yourself as a member of the Somers 
family,” Mr. Somers replied, looking across the table 
at Wykeman with mock reproachfulness. 

“Thank you,” said Wykeham. 

Dick wondered what this could mean. Was 
Wykeham a suitor for the hand of Miss Somers ? 
While Somers and Wykeham continued their pre- 
tended wrangle, and Sir Gordon contemplated them 
over his cigar which he appeared to enjoy hugely, 
Dick turned to Tremont remarking, “Rather an odd 
fish, our friend Wykeham, eh?” 

“ Eccentric, but a good fellow, and clever in his 
way,” said Tremont. 

“What did Mr. Somers mean by that remark 
about his becoming a member of the family ? ” 

“Possibilities between Mr. Wykeham and Mrs. 
Winnington,” said Tremont. 

“ Oh ! ” exclaimed Dick, with an evident sense of 


Tim PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 153 

relief, “ of course I ought to have understood that 
Miss Somers would not be likely to ” 

“ A very pleasant woman, Mrs. Wilmington,” said 
Tremont, purposely interrupting his friend ; “ a lit- 
tle eccentric, has travelled a great deal, and if he is 
to he married I don’t know that Wykeham could do 
better.” 

“ No, I dare say not,” said Dick, not thinking of 
Wykeham or the widow for a moment, “ if he is to 
be married.” 

“Yes,” said Tremont, smiling. 

“ And you, my dear Jack,” responded Dick, low- 
ering his voice, “ what about you ? Miss Somers is 
all you said she was and more.” 

“ Y ou think so ? V ery remarkable that you should 
have met her before you knew who she was, and 
under such romantic circumstances I ” said the 
Rector. 

“ Yes, and that you should have mentioned lier to 
me in that welcome letter which I received the day I 
was leaving Paris for home.” 

“ Why did you hurry away, Dick, when she 
wished to thank you ? ” 

“ I don’t know quite, old chap ; she looked so good 
and pure, so sweet and ” 

“Yes?” 

“Well, I don’t know.” 

“ She always said it was like an Englishman to do 
so, but I did not feel it in that way.” 

“We are a queer lot, we English, away from home,” 
said Dick ; “ JMiss Somers is right there.” 


154 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ But we are courteous to women.” 

“ Not always,” said Dick. 

“ Is that true ? I sometimes regret that I never 
had the instinct of travel. But if Englishmen when 
they are abroad have an idea that they represent 
the flag, and must be brave, willi nilli, I don’t see 
why they should not be more than ever gallant to 
women.” 

“No, nor I,” said Dick, “I don’t know that I was 
exactly rude to Miss Somers, but you know what it 
is — a fellow simply steps out of his way to lay his 
hand upon a couple of runaway horses, and if there 
is a lady in the case people will make such a fuss that 
you feeltas if you had been getting up a testimonial 
to yourself.” 

“ It is wonderful that you should meet again, and 
here of all places in the world, is it not ?” 

“ Yes, I suppose it is,” said Dick, “ but the world 
is very small; I met a fellow from Leeds in an 
almost inaccessible valley, far away beyond the 
Aruwhimi.” 

“ Do you know I envy you that adventure in the 
Place Vendome,” said Tremont leaning back in his 
chair and looking at Dick through the smoke of his 
cigar ; “ and I love you too much, old fellow, to envy 
you anything.” 

“ Then I may congratulate you, eh ? That’s 
what I wanted to get at. You are engaged to Miss 
Somers ? ” 

“No,” said Tremont. 

“ No ! ” exclaimed Dick, 


THE PEINCESS MAZAROFF. 155 

Tremont rose and walked to the window, throw- 
ing open one of the diamond-paned sashes. 

Sir Gordon, Mr. Wykeham, and Mr. Somers were 
deep in a conversation of their own. ■ Wykeham 
was enlightening the other two in regard to the 
system of forming joint-stock companies. Sir 
Gordon was interested in Wykeham’s opinion of a 
great commercial undertaking in connection with 
African exploration, and Wykeham was very happy ; 
it was a great pleasure to find himself the centre of 
attention between two such important men as Sir 
Gordon Travers and Mr. Grafton Somers. 

“ Something has disturbed you. Jack,” said Dick, 
placing his hand on Tremont’s shoulder. 

Tremont was silent. He laid down his cigar and 
leaned against the window looking out into the night. 

“ What is it?” Dick asked, “what has disturbed 
you ? ” 

“ I don’t know that anything has at present, but 
something may.” 

“ Something may ! ” said Dick ; “ what may ? ” 

“ I don’t know, I only feel that something may up- 
set me very much, but I feel it in a vague, uncertain 
way. I will tell you, Dick, what I have not had the 
courage to tell Evelyn Somers.” 

“ Yes,” said Dick. 

“ I love her, ” said Tremont almost in a whisper, 
“and I would give the world if she could look at 
me as she looked at you when she left this room.” 

“Tremont!” exclaimed Dick, “what do you 
mean ? ” 


156 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ I mean, Dick, that a man ought to know that 
however studious, clever, and accomplished a girl 
may be, she is hardly likely to be captivated by a 
mere stay-at-home, even though he spends his life 
among the books she loves, and devotes himself to 
the studies in which she is interested. She would 
naturally admire courage, active work — the soldier, 
the pioneer. I know you will say that she admires you 
as my friend ; that is true, I have told her about you, 
she was prepared to like you ; but in her presence 
and for her you have done an act of heroism which 
counts more than learning, than wisdom, than any- 
thing else in the world. And I have made a mis- 
take in thinking or dreaming that it could be other- * 
wise.” 

Dick would not see the point of Tremont’s exor- 
dium, he would not follow the direction of his 
thoughts, he feared to think what he might mean, 
he dared not trust himself to say what he himself 
thought at the moment; he therefore took up 
Tremont’s confession from the declaration of his 
love for the girl who had been so much in his 
own thoughts ever since that mcident of the Place 
Vendome. 

“ And you have not had the courage to tell her ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ And you have known her — for how long? ” 

“ Knew her when I was a boy, but when I came 
home from college she was a woman, learned beyond 
what one expects in one so young, reserved, beauti- 
ful, and I never really seem to have had an oppor- 


TBE PBINCESS MAZAliOFF. 157 

tunity to say what I desired — to tell her what I have 
told you.” 

“ You surprise me ; not that I have had any ex- 
perience of that kind of thing ; courtship and love- 
making appear to be easy enough to novelists ; per- 
haps if I had met, say such a girl as Miss Somers, I 
might have distinguished myself ; but there, who 
knows ; it is easy enough to flirt, easy enough to tell 
a woman you love her when you don t, or when you 
do for five minutes, but to be sincere and to mean it 
for life, well, that is a serious busmess I grant 
you.” 

“ Yes, I suppose it is,” said Tremont, Dick’s re- 
mark jarring a little upon him; “ but is it not just 
as serious to tell a woman you love her when you 
do not?” 

“ It may be, but you know what I mean ; of course 
the time comes in a fellow’s life when he has to look 
at the question of settling down, as they call it-—when 
he has sown his wild oats, as they say ; not that I 
mean to tie myself up to any woman, not 1 1 ” 

“ Don’t you, Dick ? ” 

« No, my boy, I am fancy free and mean to remain 
so ; but I can sympathise with you, dear old friend, 
and indeed with any man or woman who is sincerely 
in love ; it is a sort of madness, I believe, and comes, 
how a fellow can’t tell, and goes, how a fellow doesn’t 
care, but ” 

Tremont felt that Dick was talking somewhat at 
random, and that the state of his feelings in regard 
to Evelyn was a condition of mind he did not quite 


168 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

understand ; and he therefore endeavoured to bring 
the conversation to an end. 

“ It has done me good to unburden myself to you, 
to tell you my secret,” he said, “ but there let it end ; 
I feel that I have been rather selfish in the matter.” 

“ Selfish, how ? ” Dick asked. 

“ In disturbing your thoughts with my affairs.” 

“ My dear Jack, I only wish you could give me 
an opportunity of proving my friendship for you. I 
wish I knew Miss Somers well enough to tell her 
what a great, generous heart she has won.” 

“ No, that would never do, Dick ; we will talk of 
this again some other day before you leave ; it is now 
time we should join the ladies.” 

As they turned from the window to follow Sir 
Gordon and the other two friends into the drawmg- 
room, the twilight had taken up the story of the 
lovely summer day with breath of roses and the 
song of the nightingale. The moon was rising in 
crescent shape behind the elms. Tremont had been 
watching the changing lights of the landscape as 
he conversed with his old friend, and the infiuences 
of the time had sunk into his heart, somewhat pro- 
phetically, with the feeling that after to-night it 
would be too late for him to ask Evelyn Somers to 
be his wife. 

They found the ladies sitting near the balcony of 
the drawing-room chatting and enjoying the sweet- 
ness of the summer evening, which had changed 
imperceptibly into night, and which would gradually 
develop into morning with no more of darkness or 


THE PBINCESS M A ZAROFF. 


159 


shadow. They heard the nightingale ; and the fra- 
grance of sweet-brier and honeysuckle was so rich 
in the air, that it was a poetic thought of Evelyn’s 
to suggest that the flowers were paying tribute to 
the gorgeous songster — flowers and birds pouring 
out their souls in sweet breath and song. 

It was a lovely night, and Mrs. Somers had ven- 
tured to put out some of the lights, that host and 
guests might enjoy the beauty of it ; but now that 
the gentlemen had arrived, the candles were once 
more relighted, and Mrs. Somers invited Sir Gordon 
and the rest to tea. 

The absence of that feminine touch which is so 
apparent in well-regulated establishments was hardly 
felt in the hall and the dining-room, but in the more 
elegant quarter of the house one missed the artistic 
and homely influence of a mistress. It was a pretty 
room, nevertheless, but it might have been a beautiful 
room in the hands of a woman — in the hands of a 
wife one should say. The ladies had remarked this 
before the gentlemen came in, more especially for 
the benefit of Miss Somers, who had made no re- 
sponse except in the way of surprised smiles and 
wondering nods of the head. She knew well enough 
what they meant, and had the subject been any 
other than the probability and indeed the desirability 
of her marrying Tremont she would have expressed 
herself promptly and freely. It is not impossible 
that had the conversation taken place a day or two 
previously she might have evinced at least a real 
interest in it, might have encouraged it, for it is quite 


160 THE PRINCESS MAZAROEF. 

certain that there had been moments when Tremont 
might have offered himself to Evelyn and been ac- 
cepted. She liked him. His company was always 
pleasant to her. He was a man after her own heart, 
in regard to his views of life and its duties. She 
even considered him handsome. Once or twice when 
he had been on the spur of proposing to her, when 
he had felt his heart stand still for a moment, and 
the words, “ I love you,” had trembled on his lips, 
she too had been prepared for his declaration ; but 
somehow these happy, hopeful moments had passed 
away just at the pomt of fruition, and so the time 
had gone on. It is to be presumed that if Evelyn 
had loved Tremont she would have helped him to 
declare himself, that her woman’s nature would have 
found a way to make his proposal easy ; she would 
at least have given him the encouragement of sym- 
pathetic, not to say loving glances ; she evidently did 
not love him, or Tremont was much too timid a wooer 
to inspire a passion. He felt as he glanced back 
into the twilight that his opportunities were over ; 
he felt what he would not confess to himself, and he 
thought of what Mrs. Winnington in her worldly 
way had said about his continual commendations of 
the friend of his youth, and the man who had 
marched across Africa. What a strange ordination 
of fate it was, that his hero should be her hero too, 
— the man who had, as she believed, saved her life. 

“ The cup which cheers ! yes, by all means,” said 
Somers, “ I will take a cup of tea.” 

Sir Gordon of course would not, and that led Mrs. 


The PUlNGHSS MA^AEOFF. 161 

Winnington into a condemnation of the nonsense 
medical men talk about tea being bad for the nerves 
and so on ; she had been a tea drinker all her hfe, and 
she would like to know what was the matter witli 
her nerves ? 

Mr. Wykeham, who was sitting near her, remarked 
only for her ear, if any one said a word against her 
nerves, that that person, whoever he might be, would 
have to settle with him. 

The fascinating widow whispered a request that 
he would not be foolish, and Sir Gordon hoped Dick 
and Mr. Tremont had had a good chat. Dick said 
yes, they had, and Tremont said he owed Sir Gordon 
and the others an apology, for not observing when 
they left the room. 

“ You were so deeply confidential,” said Somers, 
“ that we did not like to disturb you.” 

Mrs. Winnington asked Evelyn to sing. Evelyn 
said she would rather not. Sir Gordon wanted to 
know who played the harp, observing that he had not 
seen a harp since he visited his cousin Dorothy Cleve- 
land when he was a lad, and had just begun to fall 
in love with her sister. 

“ Mr. Tremont is the musician of Charlton- Glee ve,” 
said Mrs. Somers ; “ did you not know that ? ” 

“ No,” said Sir Gordon ; “ why, Tremont, you are a 
perfect admirable Crichton, a jack-of-all trades.” 

“ And master of none,” said the Rector. 

“No, no! I believe you are master of them 
alL” 

“ Will you not play for us ? ” asked Mrs. Somers. 

11 


162 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROEP, 


“ The harp is not a solo instrument ; perhaps Miss 
Somers will sing ? ” 

“ No, thank you,” said Evelyn, “ I would rather 
not sing to-night. You do play the harp as a solo 
instrument, sometimes, Mr. Tremont,” she continued, 
looking at the Rector, “ it is just a night for the harp ; 
and it is getting late, we must go soon.” 

“ Oh, if you wish it,” said Tremont, directing a 
servant to bring the harp. 

“ It is an old harp you see ; I dare say as old as 
the one Sir Gordon knew when he was a boy,” said 
the Rector, sitting down and tuning one or two 
strings, “ a single-action, quite out of date ; but when 
I first studied music I took a fancy to the instru- 
ment ; all musical instruments are worth studying.” 
As he spoke he swept his hands over the strings, 
which responded with a ripple of harmonious sounds ; 
“ You know the ^olian harp. Sir Gordon,” he said 
still caressing the instrument, “it used to be a 
familiar object in country houses.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Sir Gordon ; “ we have one or two 
now to prop the windows with on stormy nights.” 

“ And what music they made,” said the Rector, 
his white hands covering the strings and producing 
the very wild kind of harmonies that are peculiar to 
the ^olian harp on stormy nights — now soft, now 
low, now telling of the sea, now of the forest, now 
with strange cries as of men in trouble, now singing 
like angelic voices. It was a weird kind of music ; 
it fell even upon the animal spirits of Sir Gordon like 
a charm. It picked up in Evelyn’s imagination the 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


163 


murmurs of the silvery gong with the story of the 
Hindoo maiden ; and presently it was so wailing, 
sweet, and tender that the tears coursed down her 
cheeks and she felt as if she had done the Rector a 
vile wrong, as if she would like to get up and say, 
“ Oh, dear friend, forgive me ! ” Then the music 
grew defiant and strong, wild with passion, and full 
of the rhythm of some strange, weird march of imps 
and demons, the phrasmg fine, the execution wonder- 
ful ; and presently the strains would become so sub- 
dued that the nightingale could be heard between 
the motives as they changed to sweet and lulling 
measures with reminiscences of song and dance and 
mirthful stories ; and so the Rector, bringing back 
his audience to smiles and happy thoughts, arose 
from the instrument, and everybody applauded ; but 
Evelyn was wiping her eyes, and Mrs. Somers apolo- 
gised for her — “ Evelyn is so fond of music, that it 
always taxes her feelings to the utmost, and the 
Rector is such a master ! ” 

“ Music affects me in that way sometimes,” said 
Dick ; I once heard an organ at Lucerne that imi- 
tated storm and sunrise, and a choir singing the 
evening hymn, and — I know it is absurd for a rough 
fellow like me, a mere backwoodsman, as I may say 
— but I was glad I was sitting in a pew by myself.” 

“ Tut, tut,” said Sir Gordon, “ men have no right 
to be emotional, that’s a sensation we may well leave 
to the ladies ; but you are all right now. Miss Somers, 
are you not ? ” 

“I am very well, thank you. Sir Gordon,” said 


164 the princess mazaroff. 

Evelyn, and for a moment she disliked Dick’s father, 
and so did Dick, but only for a moment ; and the 
old fellow deserved their resentment, he was so 
scornful. 

A servant here announced the Somers’ carriages, 
and the ladies left to put on their wraps. On 
Tremont’s invitation the men withdrew into the 
hall, where they had been first received, to take a 
stirrup-cup ; and here, lo and behold, the roses had 
been removed from the fireplace, and a couple of 
smouldering logs had taken their place. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Tremont, “ we always light a fire 
in the hall at night ; even when it is hot summer, 
a fire is companionable, especially in such a room 
as this; I generally smoke a cigar here before I 
go to bed, unless I lose myself over some books in 
the library. By the way, I must show you my lit- 
erary paradise to-morrow; if one could have the 
heaven one would desire, when life’s fitful fever is 
over, I think I should vote for a heaven of libra- 
ries.” 

“ And good dinners,” said Sir Gordon ; “ but we 
must not talk in this way ; it is nearly Sunday. Do 
you preach to-morrow. Rector ?” 

“ Well, it was not my intention to inflict my opin- 
ions upon the congregation of Charlton- Cleeve to- 
morrow ; but I will do so if you desire it.” 

“ Why, yes, certainly,” said Sir Gordon, “ noth- 
ing would please me better ; I only speak for my- 
self.” 

‘‘I can assure you, Sir Gordon,” said Somers, 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


165 


“ that you speak for all of us ; we hear Tremont too 
seldom, and, unorthodox as he is, the congregation 
love to hear him preach.” 

« Very well then, it shall be so,” said Tremont 
smiling, “ I hope I shall not bore you ; anyhow, I 
can promise you I will not do so for more than half- 
an-hour.” 

By this time the stirrup-cups were emptied; in 
another minute Tremont was saying good-bye to 
the Somerses, and a little later he and Dick and 
Sir Gordon smoked a last cigar in the hall : and thus 
an eventful evening came to a prosaic conclusion. 


166 


THE FlilNCESS MAZ,AROFF. 


CHAPTER XI. 

FRIEND OR FOE ? 

The rose is fairest when ’tis budding new, 

And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears; 

The rose is sweetest wash’d with morning dew, 

And love is loveliest when embalm’d in tears.” 

Scott. 

Friendship is constant in all other things, 

Save in the office and affairs of love. 

Shakespeare. 

A WOMAN, they say, takes pleasure in playing with 
a man’s love. She likes to feel her power over him. 
She delights to tyrannise the lover, whom she has 
not yet accepted, to keep hack the word that makes 
her his own. She knows that half the delight and 
strength of her reign is at an end when she gives 
her love and ratifies it with her confession. When 
the man is secure of it, he is no longer on his knees ; 
she has given hack to her slave at least a semblance 
of his liberty. 

So does a cat love to play with a mouse, a poet 
with a fancy, an orator with an idea, a novelist 
with the literary and artistic development of a 
catastrophe ; hut the historian must go on manfully 
with his facts ; not his the right to trifle with an 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


167 


event, to toy with it and give it phases ; not his the 
pleasure of holding back the moment of revolt, 
of postponing the sound of the toscin : Carlyle’s 
masterly pen was even “ rushed ” under the pressure 
of the Revolution — he might not pause, he could not, 
he dared not ; the flags were flying, the drums 
beating, the trumpet sounding, the tragedians were 
waiting at the wings to come on ; Time had his 
hand continually on the curtam. 

Events are great or small by comparison. His- 
torian of the occurrences of this present story 
— momentous to those whom they concern — we 
begin to feel at this jimcture the impulse of our 
facts, the pressure of our drama. We would like to 
dwell on the Sunday calm of Charlton-Cleeve ; to 
listen to the Sunday calls of the rooks up in the tall 
elms; to tell you how Sunday comes to such 
villages as that over which Tremont presided ; to 
show you the Reverend Jabez Ogden at the Sunday- 
school, Dick’s groom taking his ’osses for an airing 
before church, the little group of horsey men chatting 
near the Rectory stables. Sir Gordon Travers tramp- 
ing through the newly-cut grass, and calculating the 
weight of the crops ; the dogs that knew it Avas 
Sunday as well as the rooks and the villagers ; the 
dewdrops hanging in the heart of the roses and 
sparkling on the grass ; the cottage doors open to the 
sun and breeze, and the children neat and trim, 
curtseying to their betters. We would like to sit 
doAvn and compare with you the differences between 
toAvn and country, the narrow selflshness of a street 


168 the princess mazaroff. 

contrasted with the broad open humanity of a 
village, the individual interests of the one, the in- 
difference of the other ; the value of little things, 
the delight of the seasons, of watching things grow, 
the pleasure of early mornings, and the calm of early 
nights. We should have enjoyed the work of 
putting you through the entire routine of the vil- 
lage Sunday, the morning service, the Rector’s 
sermon and the comments thereon, the walk after 
church, and the Sunday dinner that follows; but 
coming up behind us is the shadow of events that 
cannot wait, and there is one shadow in particular 
that begins to reach out from Paris to Charlton- 
Cleeve, coming between that happy village and the 
sunshine. 

Charlton-Cleeve knows nothing of this approach- 
ing darkness at present; but there are those in 
Charlton-Cleeve who are conscious of the shadow of 
another event hardly less important to the principal 
characters in our veritable history. Mrs. Winning- 
ton knows that Evelyn Somers has come under 
the spell of the romantic personality of Dick 
Travers, romantic to her, though of a somewhat 
coarse romanticity. Dick Travers has a presenti- 
ment of it, and he finds himself strangely drawn 
towards Evelyn, it spite of himself, in spite of his 
friendship for Tremont. The Rector cannot get out 
of his mind the face of Evelyn as he saw it turned 
admiringly upon Travers. Mrs. Somers feels with 
the instinct of a mother that all her hopes of seeing 
Evelyn mistress of the Rectory are at an end ; and 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 169 

Evelyn herself is agitated with the first conscious- 
ness of love, “ the first fiuttering,” to quote Long- 
fellow, “ of its silken wings, the first rising sound 
and breath of that wind which is so soon to sweep 
through the soul to purify or destroy.” And now 
she knew that her sentiments in regard to the 
Rector were not love. They were the outcome of 
friendship, of sympathy, of the mutual pleasures 
that belong to a study of subjects in which two 
persons of similar tastes may be interested ; but 
they were not love. More than once, as we have 
seen, she had been on the eve of mistaking her feel- 
ings towards Tremont for love ; more than once she 
might have consented to so regard them ; more than 
once, if Tremont had asked her to be his wife, she 
would have consented. Friendship, pity, sympathy, 
respect are akin to love, and Evelyn was willing to 
think she loved Tremont as other women loved the 
men they married ; and in this her very learning, 
her education, her studies, her liberal mindedness, 
her knowledge of books, her acquaintance with the 
great subjects of public discussion helped the illu- 
sion, and had Tremont been a bold wooer he would 
have carried off his choice of women before she had 
really known what love might be. 

But all this was at an end. Love had come to 
Evelyn without study ; a branch of knowledge not 
to be learnt in books, an inspiration that is not of 
the library or the college ; a blessing or a curse that 
is not exclusive to rich or poor, a rapture that might 
be felt as keenly in the cottage as in the palace ; a 


170 


THE PBIECESS MAZAROFF. 


sting that is as sharp whether it strike the patrician 
or the plebeian breast ; an impulse of self-sacrifice 
that comes as fresh and pure and beautiful to the 
peasant maiden, who can neither read nor write, as 
it comes to the daughter of the most noble house in 
the world of courts and kings. 

Evelyn Somers was learned in many things, was 
intellectually proud, knew tongues at as. early an 
age as Mary and Elizabeth the Tudc r Queens, had 
taken the trouble to study the hateful disabilities of 
Ibsen’s blighted village, had peered through the veil 
of Isis, in the pages of Blavatsky, had given herself 
over for a time to the fads and worries of the most 
active minds of Europe, and might not be blamed 
for believing that she knew how the world wagged, 
and that she was doing something for the ameliora- 
tion of her sex from the reproach of narrowness and 
ignorance. She had often thought that she had no 
call for the marriage state, and had felt a certain 
commiseration for those who had ; she had longed, 
however, for the companionship of a cultured mind, 
and had found it in friendly intercourse with John 
Tremont. Under the infiuence of his sweet intel- 
lectuality and sympathetic nature, she had hesitated 
about the marriage state, and almost come to the 
conclusion that such interest as she felt in Tremont 
after all might be love. Furthermore she had be- 
gun to pity him ; for she would have been blind not 
to know that he was only truly happy when he was 
in her society ; and her regard for him was empha- 
sised by the knowledge of his goodness, his truth. 


PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 171 

his honour, his high character, and his lovable na- 
ture. But now she knew what love is. The light 
had come to her, the unmistakable revelation — she 
loved John Tremont’s friend. 

Although Dick’s friendship was not the true ster- 
ling gold of which Tremont’s was composed, it was 
strong as friendship goes ; it would have fought, it 
would have bled, it would have endured hardships, 
it would have given up its last penny for its friend, 
but it would have wanted the immediate impulse 
the impact of necessity. Tremont would have done 
all these things and more before the necessity was 
apparent. He would, by intuition, have felt' the 
stress of his friend, he would have suffered for him 
in silence, he would have helped him without seem- 
ing to do it. There would have been no drums or 
trumpets in his self-sacrifice, but he would have 
gone out into the wilderness alone, if need be, to 
make his friend happy. 

Quixotic you say, perhaps. But the Don was a 
lovable character, though it seems a pity that the 
author found it necessary to justify his chivalry by 
making him mad. 

There are plenty of examples of the Tremont 
friendship in real life. Hardly a day passes that 
men do not lay down their lives not only for their 
friends but for men and women whom they hardly 
know, for men and women to whom they have never 
spoken. The newspapers are full of such incidents 
of sacrifices in mining, at sea, in confiagrations, in 
war, at home and abroad. How much more, then, 


172 the princess MAZABOEE. 

shall a man be ready to suffer for the companion of 
his boyhood, the hero of his later life, the friend 
whom he has taken to his heart, as Hamlet took 
Horatio ! 

Tremont would not have been the man to have 
left the Princess Mazaroff all this time in Paris with- 
out a word. In the first place, he would not have 
been the man to contract a mesalliance. It may be 
that after all this is not paying any special tribute 
to his moral character, seeing that his temperament 
was hostile to such violent delights, while Dick was 
built in a coarser mould, and had come from an en- 
tirely different class of ancestry. Dick had plenty 
of good qualities, but he could cut his way through 
an opposing tribe of dusky warriors without a re- 
gret for the bodies he would leave in his rear. He 
was a born pioneer, inasmuch as expediency was 
his law of travel. He had the masterfulness of the 
soldier, the courage of the sportsman, and the heart 
of a child in this respect, that it was governed by 
its quick emotions ; while its troubles were as 
speedily at an end. His passions were storms, and 
the more violent the storm the more soft and gentle 
and restful the calm. It was known that he had 
fought his way through a portion of Africa with 
sword and rifie ; it was known that he had executed 
one of his scouts as an example to the others ; it had 
been said by one whom he had dismissed from his 
service, that he had behaved with cruelty to his 
followers, that he had ruthlessly and wrongfully 
hanged the scout in question; but there was no 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 173 

truth in this, Travers had shown himself as hu- 
mane as he was brave, and as modest as he was 
humane. 

Unhappily for Dick, luckily for this romance, the 
truth of these charges one day became a factor of 
some importance to Dick under very trying circum- 
stances. We say luckily for this romance, for the 
reason that had these trying circumstances not 
arisen in the life of Dick Travers, this history would 
have had no raison (TUre^ and could, therefore, 
never have been written. 

A man rarely knows when or how or where his 
conduct is to be impugned, what enemy is at w’ork 
against him, who the enemy is, and why he is an 
enemy. As a rule it is to be feared he has in some 
way or another, consciously or unconsciously, sown 
the seed of the bitter poison weed that overshadows 
and chokes his better products. 

The disgraced officer of Dick’s expedition, embit- 
tered by his fancied wrongs, in the hope of usmg it 
to his disadvantage, had gathered what he called 
evidence against Travers on the Congo and beyond 
the Aruwhimi — right away as far as the furthest 
point of the pioneer’s operations — and was nursing 
his imaginary grievances, waiting for the opportunity 
when he might hurl his poisoned arrows at his moral 
character, and detract from his reputation for courage 
and humanity. So far as the truth was concerned, 
Travers had nothing to fear; but while truth is 
said to prevail, the denouement of its victory is 
sometimes long in coming, and men have been known 


174 T'liE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 

to die before their wrongfully besmirched reputa- 
tions could be cleared. 

But all this belongs to the shadows that are com- 
ing up behind our narrative, coming up from Paris, 
from Russia, from Africa, to culminate in a storm 
that will tax all the pioneer’s courage and endurance. 
In the meantime there is much to tell, and there is 
still to come the avant couriers of storm and tempest, 
the lull and peace, the rest and lotus-like luxury of 
the calm that precedes great storms. 

It was the day before Dick’s departure from 
Charlton Manor. He had gone to take afternoon 
tea at Cleeve House. He was sittmg in the summer 
house, where Evelyn and Tremont had sat not so 
long before, when the Rector lost his last chance 
of realising his most cherished hopes. The roses 
that had breathed their sweet perfumes over Evelyn 
and Tremont were lying at the feet of Evelyn and 
Travers in a shower of red and white, but fresh 
buds and blooms had taken their places. 

Evelyn was almost in the same dress, grey crape, 
with gloves and shoes of grey swede, and hat with 
trailing sprays of pink blooms ; she looked almost 
beautiful, she was certainly a most interesting and 
charming girl. Her brown eyes were downcast, the 
dark lashes of her eyelids shadowed her cheeks. She 
was making lines among the rose leaves upon the 
floor with her parasol, as she spoke to Travers or 
listened to what he had to say, 

“ I shall be very sorry to leave Charlton,” he said ; 
“ I sometimes wish I had not come.” 


THE PUlNCESS MAZAROFF. 


175 


“ Yes,” said Evelyn, “ and why, may I ask ? ” 

“ I can hardly tell why,” he answered. 

“ Has it disillusioned your idea of Arcadia ? ” 

“ No, it is just what I expected to find it, and Jack 
is the same dear fellow, and it is a fine thing to see 
him so happily placed. I don’t know that I ought 
to feel miserable that my visit is over, but I do.” 

« Parting has always a touch of sorrow in it,” 
said Evelyn. 

“ Yes, I suppose so. Miss Somers,” said Dick, 
moving his chair near her, at which she felt a 
pleasant tremor ; “ I am a plain man, no more after 
all than a sort of backwoodsman, and I would like 
to ask you a few plain questions, as Tremont’s oldest 
friend.” 

“ Yes, I will hear you,” she said, « and answer you 
if I can,” her face becoming a shade paler. 

“ John Tremont is the best fellow in the world and 
he loves you,” said Dick. 

Evelyn for the first time since they had entered 
the arbour raised her eyes and looked at Travers, 
with an inquiring, somewhat surprised expression. 

“ No, he has not commissioned me to say so ; I can 
see that is what you are thinking. Indeed, he wished 
me not to do so. I did not ask him if I might, I 
only said I wished I knew you well enough to do so.” 

“ And how do you know he loves me ? ” she asked 
in a low voice. 

“ Because he has told me so.” 

“ He has never told me so.” 

“ No, he had not the courage. I ventured to say 


176 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


to him that there was, I supposed, no greater sign 
of love than a man’s feeling of incapacity to confess 
it to the girl he loves.” 

“Is that a sign of love ? ” 

“ The first and foremost, I believe ; not that I 
know by experience, but ” 

Evelyn let her parasol fall upon the ground; 
Dick picked it up. She thanked him. The trifling 
incident disarranged Dick’s thoughts. He stam- 
mered something about the fallen roses, and picked 
up a handful of the leaves to strew them back upon 
the floor, as he went on speaking in a nervous kind 
of way. 

“ As I was saying,” he remarked, “ perhaps I am 
wrong in taking this business upon myself ; I am 
not always wise, rarely so, indeed, but I wanted to 
ask you, and now I am coming to it — plain and 
straight — if there is no chance for Tremont.” 

But for the reason that her heart was engaged 
and was no longer under the control of her head, 
but that her head was indeed entirely out of the 
argument, Evelyn would have despised the bungling 
common- place words and manner of Dick Travers 
in his voluntary act of ambassadorship ; but blinded 
by her love she found in all he said the simplicity of 
a manly and generous nature. 

“ What do you wish me to say, Mr. Travers ? ” she 
asked, looking at him once more, her brown eyes 
steadily flxed upon his. 

“ Whatever it is in your heart to say, that is if 
you think I have any right to advise you, and I 


TBE PniKCESS MAZAEOFF. 


177 


doubt 1 am interfering with affairs that rightly do 
not concern me,” Dick answered once more gather- 
ing a handful of rose leaves and scattering them 
slov/ly upon the floor. 

“We may not always say what it is in our heart 
to say,” Evelyn replied, her voice clear and musical ; 
“but as regards Mr. Tremont, there is no man for 
whom 1 have a greater esteem, none whom 1 value 
more as a friend ; but I could never be Mr. Tre- 
mont’s wife.” 

There was something very calm and decisive in 
this declaration. It was like the verdict of a jury, 
like the sentence of a judge — it left nothing more to 
be said. Dick felt this, and for some seconds he 
made no reply. A sudden selflsh desire came into 
his mind, a quick impulse of hope, and it came with 
a rush of emotion that crimsoned his cheeks. He 
forgot his friend ; he only remembered the face that 
had haunted him in Paris, coming like a sweet 
eclipse between him and that other bold, beautiful 
face that had wept bitter tears for him ; he only saw 
the lovely vision before him, only heard her musical 
voice, only saw her soft, dreamy eyes, looking at him 
as they had never before looked at mortal man. 

“ Miss Travers,” he said, trembling and taking her 
hand — “ Evelyn, there is some one you love ; my 
heart stands still.” 

She returned the pressure of his hand. 

“ I am mad to say it, I know I am, but ever since 
the day I saw you first, ever since that moment in 
the Place Vendome, your face has been in my mind, 
12 


178 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


and I have loved you, and I should never have ceased 
to love you if I had never seen you again ; I think 
it was because I loved you that I turned from you ; 
perhaps I felt unworthy of you, you looked so good 
and pure, so far above me ; all the same I loved you ; 
all the same I love you now ; but I did not come 
here to tell you that ; I came to try and make Tre- 
mont’s peace with you, to speak for my friend — am 
I a traitor ? I am surely, and yet I would die for 
both of you.” 

“ Do not die for us,” Evelyn said, again returning 
the pressure of his hand, “ at least live for me.” 

The roses fell in showers about them, as he took 
her into his arms and kissed the lips that had given 
to him the love he would have sought for his friend. 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


179 


CHAPTER XII. 

FROM THE ARBOUR TO THE LIBRARY. 

If thou can’st not suffer — die I— A. de Musset. 

“ One dies twice : to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to 
love and be loved, is one insupportable death.”— Fo^taire. 

The morning after the scene in the arbour — the 
weather bright and genial. Dick’s grooms washing 
the coach, the other servants preparing for depart- 
ure from Charlton Manor. The rooks seem to know 
that the guests are going away. Sir Gordon has 
gone over to say farewell to the Cleeve House 
people. Dick had done this the night previously. 
Wykeham is reading his letters in bed and does not 
come down to breakfast. Mrs. Winnington is in 
Evelyn’s room at Cleeve House. There is a kind of 
flurry in the atmosphere of the two houses. The 
inmates look at each other and talk as if something 
of unusual importance has happened, or is about to 
happen. The bringing out of the Travers coach has 
not caused this general flutter. 

The one person who should know most about 
what has occurred to disturb the general calm of 
Charlton- Cleeve, knows nothing of it. He is not 


180 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


quite comfortable. He does not look out into the 
future with the same kind of hope that influenced 
his thoughts before Dick Travers appeared on the 
rural scene of Charlton- Glee ve ; but nobody has 
told him what has occurred at Cleeve House. Sir 
Gordon knows all about it. Dick has told him. Sir 
Gordon has gone out of the way while Dick tells 
Tremont. Sir Gordon was at flrst inclined to receive 
Dick’s confession with anger and with wrath, but 
when he had heard the entire story, and when he 
learnt that Evelyn had positively declared that 
nothing would induce her to marry Tremont, he 
softened towards his son; not however without 
remarking that it is a pity they ever came to Charl- 
ton- Cleeve, and that love, so called, is the bane of 
life ; he paused again, however, to say that he meant 
when it did not run smoothly, and when the right 
man did not fall in love with the wrong woman. It 
is hardly needful to remark that Dick said nothing 
to his father about the Princess Mazaroff. 

Tremont lingering over his dressing, late down 
to breakfast, is unusually observant. Miss Travers 
notices this. Dick is agitated. Tremont can see 
that he is not quite himself. He feels that a long- 
looked for re -union has come to an end, and that 
not as the fault of the visit, but as an incident of it, 
he has discovered that one of his most cherished 
hopes has also come to an end. But as yet he does 
not dream that Evelyn has pledged herself to Dick. 

We have seen, however, that the Rector had se- 
riously noticed the expression of warm admiration 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 181 

that came into Evelyn’s face when Dick stood by 
the doorway after that first dinner of the Travers 
visit, and bowed to her as she went out with the 
rest of his lady guests. He felt as if that expression 
was fixed in his mind as something he had longed 
for, as something he could never obtain ; but he had 
not associated it with the possibility of Dick having 
taken advantage of it to push his own fortunes in 
that direction. He had thought about the incident, 
nevertheless, almost continuously ever since. It had 
come into his mind at all kinds of opportune and 
inopportune moments. He saw the face which he 
adored beam with an expression of sympathy, 
almost of love ; but it was turned from him ; and 
an instinct of dissappointment told him that it would 
not turn his way. He had often enough seen in 
Evelyn’s eyes a gleam of pleasure, an approving 
smile of interest awakened by something he had 
said ; once or twice he had felt that he might hope 
for the full frank look, of at least an expression, 
akin to that he felt was in his own eyes as he bent 
them upon her; but it had never come; and yet 
within an hour or two of her meeting with Travers, 
there it was in her eyes clear and unmistakable ; 
but was that out of compliment to him? Was it 
after all only the happy smile of endorsement, which 
such a woman might bestow upon such a man, after 
knowing that he was not only the hero of all his 
stories of the pioneer, but the hero of the one chap- 
ter of romance that adorned her somewhat prosaic 
life, Tremont did not formulate these notions or 


182 THE PlilNCESS MAZABOFF. 

questions, they came and went in his thoughts 
without as it seemed any eifort of his own. They 
had a depressing effect on his spirits ; hut they did 
not in the least affect his feelings towards his old 
friend ; and indeed he had hardly had time to think 
the situation out, as he meant to do when Dick and 
his party should have said good-bye. Even if the 
idea that Evelyn and Dick had suddenly fallen in 
love with each other had occurred to him, the decla- 
ration of Dick that he would never enter the married 
state would have nipped his speculations on that 
head in their first budding. 

Dick, on the other hand, was in a state of mental 
pain and perplexity. He had not slept a wink all 
night. He had arisen almost with the first sun- 
beams and gone down to the river with an armful 
of towels, and seeking the quietest and most se- 
cluded nook had plunged in and dashed about, and 
swum, and dived, with an energy that even he 
rarely permitted himself, in the way of mere phys- 
ical-pleasure. He drained a small flask of brandy- 
and- water when he had dressed himself, and after 
a visit to the stable, he took a long walk along the 
valley, and climbed the Breddons, now moved by a 
wonderful sense of exhilaration as he thought of 
Evelyn, now down below zero in the world of de- 
spair, as he thought of Tremont, and the ill turn he 
had served him ; and now pausing to feel a pang of 
sorrow for the Princess Mazaroff. He had just learnt 
for the first time what it was to love, as he felt man 
should love, with a shicere abandonment of self; 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


183 


while a passing sense of the kindness of a fellow- 
feeling touched him as he thought of the love the 
woman in Paris had lavished upon him. These 
feelings and sentiments followed each other in quick 
succession ; and above them all he realised to the 
full the enormity, on the face of it, of his conduct 
towards his friend and host John Tremont. 

Breakfast was on the table when he returned to 
Charlton Manor, but Sir Gordon had been down 
early and only Tremont and Gerty were at table. 
The first meal of the day at Charlton Manor, was a 
pleasant incident — it had no specific time, it began 
very early, and it went on until within a couple of 
hours of Imicheon. This was one of the luxuries 
Tremont always allowed his guests, and although it 
did not meet with the complete approval of his 
housekeeper, his servants were nevertheless suffi- 
ciently well in hand to make a long breakfast part 
of the discipline of the house. 

Dick was glad to find his sister with Tremont. 
He found it hard work to eat, but he got through 
the meal, though once or twice he felt as if it would 
choke him. He talked at random about all manner 
of things, and was greatly relieved when Tremont 
rose and proposed a cigar. 

Gerty put on a sunbonnet and went out into the 
garden. Dick and Travers lighted their cigars and 
sat m the hall with the windows opened to the 
sweet breath of the morning. 

“ Jack I want to talk to you,” said Dick. “ Where 
are you most at home, in this home-like house ? ” 


184 tee princess mazaboff, 

“ Do yOw mean where are we likely to be least 
disturbed ? ” asked Tremont. 

“No, not that exactly, although I would wish 
that we may be quite private.” 

“ The library is what Somers calls my den.” 

“ You feel happier there than anywhere else in 
the place?” 

“ Sometimes ; but that depends.” 

“You are firmer there — more at home — could, 
stand bad news there better than anywhere else ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know Dick ; I hope I am enough of 
a philosopher to stand anything that may come to a 
man in the ordinary course of life.” 

“ I have something to tell you that is not in the 
ordinary course.” 

“ Indeed, well come along.” 

Dick followed his host into the library. 

Tremont drew down a blind over an oriel window, 
where the sun was pouring in a flood of silvery 
1 ight upon the main division of his array of books — 
shelf upon shelf of varied learning bound up in 
Russia, Morocco, calf, cloth, in many colours, and 
with many titles. They were not exactly in order. 
Here and there a volume had evidently been put 
away hurriedly. The library was clearly not for 
show, but for use. One or two shelves had quite 
an everyday appearance, as though these particular 
volumes were thumbed favourites, not to say dog- 
eared. Tremont laid his hands tenderly upon them 
as one who loved them. 

“ I was reading late last night,” he said, “ and 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 185 

have not had time to put my friends in their cus- 
tomary places.” 

“You always call books friends,” said Dick. 

“ The remark is by no means original.” 

“ No, but you used to say they were a fellow’s 
best friends,” said Dick. 

“ Ah, one is apt to exaggerate ; they supply the 
place of friends, when friends are away, or when 
they are dead ; your book-friend is always with you, 
you know.” 

« And always the same,” said Dick ; “ yes, that is 
so, he does not suddenly turn traitor and slap you 
in the face.” 

“ Why, Dick, what is the matter ; you have surely 
not been trying Somers’s old brown sherry so early 
in the day ? ” 

“ No, it would require something stronger than old 
brown sherry to make any impression upon me this 
morning ; I have tried brandy, but I never believed 
in Dutch courage.” 

“ What is it. What is it, Dick, something has 
happened ? ” Tremont said, facing Dick and no- 
ticing that his eyes were bloodshot, his face pale. 

“ Yes, something has happened, a great deal has 
happened, and I am here to tell you ; I have not 
slept a wink all night. Jack, my boy, it would have 
been well for you, if we had never known each 
other.” 

“ Dick, what are you saying ! Calm yourself, you 
are distressed, take your tim.' I can bear anything 
you may have to tell me j don’t consider me,” 


186 


THE PBIHCEHS MAZAROFF. 


“ I have not considered you ; I am a traitor ; I 
have wronged you ! ” 

“ Wronged me, Dick ! not intentionally, not will- 
ingly, and I forgive you before you tell me what 
it is ” 

“ Yes, intentionally and willingly,” said Dick. “ I 
am a miserable wretch when I suppose I ought to 
be most happy, for they say all is fair in love and 
war, and I would die for either of you.” 

The more Dick unpacked his overloaded con- 
science with words, the more inexplicable became 
his promised news, the more mysterious his conduct. 
Tremont felt an mkling of what it might be, for he 
too had had but little sleep ; he had felt the cold 
touch of the shadow that was loommg up in his 
sunny atmosphere. 

“ Sit down and tell me what you mean, Dick.” 

“ Nay, I cannot sit ; and how, in God’s name, can 
I tell you what I mean, when I know the confession 
will break your heart, judging by my own feelings.” 

“ Hearts do not break,” said Tremont, “ they only 
ache ; but what is it ? What can have occurred in 
which I am so deeply interested ? You are well ? — 
I know your visit has come to an end, I am sorry 
for that.” 

“ I am sorry it ever began, — that is, I ought to be. 
Jack, I am a scamp. I hate to look you in the face ; 
and yet I came to tell you as man to man, friend to 
friend, that I ” 

“Yes, Dick, well?” said Tremont, a tremour of 
anxiety in his voice. 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


187 


“ That I love Evelyn Somers.” 

“ My God ! ” exclaimed Tremont. 

“ Curse me ! ” said Dick nervously ; “ I despise 
myself ; but I would never have told her or you if I 
could have helped it.” 

“ Who could help loving her ? ” said Tremont, as 
if speaking to himself. 

“ I went to her as your voluntary uncommis- 
sioned ambassador ; she made a confession to me 
that ” 

“ Yes, tell me all,” said Tremont. 

“ I did not ask her the question ; she told me she 
admired, respected, esteemed you — that you were 
her dearest friend, but no more ; that you could be 
no more ; that you never had said you desired to be 
more ; that she could never be your wife.” 

“ How could I delude myself with the hope that 
she might?” said Tremont, still as if communing 
with himself. 

“ I am a miserable wretch to tell you this, but it 
had to be told ; for in the midst of it all I discovered 
that she had kept sacred in her mind the memory of 
our first meeting in Paris, just as I had done ; for 
from that moment I have never got her face out of 
my soul, and when I saw her here my heart stood 
still, and I hardly felt that I was responsible for my 
actions. We met, we loved, and if I had not seen 
her again all my life I would have gone on loving 
her.” 

“ And yet you allowed her to go away without a 
word. Why ? ” said Tremont in his strange, calm 


188 the princess mazaroff. 

way, speaking as if to himself, and ignoring Dick 
except in so far as regarded his words. 

“ I felt unworthy to converse with so much purity 
and sweetness, or fate made a point for you ; my 
heavens. Jack ! why did you not tell her how you 
felt towards her long ago ? Why did you not let me 
come here to find her your wife ? Then what other- 
wise becomes love would have remained respect, 
admiration, friendship.” 

“ I don’t know, it was not to he,” said Tremont ; 
“ let us say no more about it — not just now at all 
events.” 

Tremont rose from his chair, as he had done once 
or twice during the conversation, to walk to and 
fro, while Dick stood almost in the same position 
throughout. Tremont now went to the window and 
looked out, leaning against the wall. He still held 
his cigar in his right hand. It was no longer alight. 
On the other hand Dick had kept his burning, pull- 
ing at it violently now and then, and almost eating 
the end of it. Tremont did not speak for some 
minutes. Presently he walked over to the book- 
case, rearranged several volumes, and then laymg 
down his cigar took another from the box and begun 
to smoke steadily. Dick watched him with a curious 
solicitude. 

“You could not help it, Dick,” said Tremont, 
looking at him. “ Of course it is for the best. I 
don’t quite know how I feel about it at present. I 
shall, I am sure, feel as I ought to feel about it. 
You must give me a little time. No doubt the hand 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


189 


of Providence is in it. I have loved you so truly, 
Dick, and so affectionately, that I can understand all 
you have told me about Evelyn. I think something 
in the nature of a revelation had been working in my 
mind unconsciously to prepare me for this — for the 
inevitable — but I am a little stunned ; don’t think 
me selfish, don’t think me ungenerous; I am not 
quite myself ; I shall be all right soon.” 

His manner was that of one who had been hurt 
in an accident that had paralysed him. He moved 
about uneasily ; he went on talking, now to Dick, 
now to himself. He again walked over to one of the 
bookcases and straightened a volume that was awry. 
Presently he took one down and opened it. He 
turned to a passage that was marked, and with a 
kind of pitying smile read aloud, Save a man from 
drowning^ and he marries your sweetheart^ I have 
not saved you from drowning yet, Dick ; but if you 
were drowning and I could save you, I should do so 
all the same. Don’t distress yourself, old friend.” 

“ My dear Jack, is it possible that you can forgive 
me } ” said Travers, in a low voice. 

“ It is not possible that I cannot forgive you any- 
thing, Dick ; but let us go into the air ; my den is 
rather hot this morning.” 

Tremont, very pale, put out his hand, as if for 
support. Dick grasped it fervently, and feeling that 
Tremont had suddenly become a little unsteady he 
wound his right arm about him and placed him in a 
chair. 

“ It is nothing,” said Tremont, looking at him ; “ I 


190 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


am not used to the tax of strong emotions. No ; do 
not ring. I am quite well. Yes, quite ; let us walk 
under the elms.” 

The Rector leaned upon Dick’s arm, and they went 
out into the garden, where Tremont quickly recovered 
himself, and began to talk of the coach, and the wea- 
ther, as if nothing had happened. Sir Gordon was 
amazed to see them together in this way. He feared 
Dick had not kept his promise, for the father had 
insisted that Dick should make a clean breast of the 
whole business before starting for home. Dick had 
undertaken to do so, and to tell it all as near as he 
could word for word if it broke his heart, and his 
own too. How well, one might say how brutally, 
he had kept his word, we have heard and seen. 

By-and-by Gerty joined the group, in hat and light 
silk scarf, for setting forth. The horses were being 
put into the shafts. There was a little crowd of 
on-lookers. 

“ You will call and say good-bye to my Cleeve 
neighbours as you pass, I understand,” said Tre- 
mont ; “ give them my best regards, I had a mind 
to accompany you as far, but the fewer there are to 
share in good-byes, the better, perhaps.” 

“ My dear Tremont,” said Sir Gordon, “ I have to 
thank you for a very delightful time ; believe me, I 
shall cherish the memory of your kindness, and count 
you if I may as one of my dearest friends. The true 
friendship of an old man is a thing to be trusted ; it 
has no prejudices, no barriers that belong to young 
friendships ; I mean what I say. God bless you, 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 191 

Travers, I like you ! And when Gordon Travers 
says that, he means it through and through.” 

“ Thank you,” said Treniont, as Sir Gordon pressed 
his hand. 

“ Good-bye, Jack,” said Dick, in a voice trembling 
with emotion. 

“ Good-bye,” Tremont replied, calm and quiet. 

“ Good-bye, Mr. Tremont,” said Gerty ; “ and I 
hope you will come and see us.” 

“ I hope to do so,” said Tremont ; “ good-bye, Miss 
Travers, and I wish you all a very pleasant drive.” 

By this time they had begun to mount their seats. 
Dick was on the box. The three servants were up 
behind. The guard blew his horn ; and the dust of 
a bright summer morning soon made a little cloud 
behind them, through which Tremont watched the 
flash of red and gold, and in which whirl of dust he 
felt his best hopes of happiness were whirling away 
into a million worthless atoms. 


192 


THE PBINCESS MAZAEOFF. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER ARRIVES AT CHARLTON- 
CLEEVE. 

“ Come back to me, who wait and watch for you : — 

Or come not yet, for it is over then. 

And long it is before you come again. 

So far between my pleasures are and few. 

While, when you come not, what I do I do 
Thinking, ‘Now when he comes,’ my sweetest ‘when’: 
For one man is my world of all men 
This whole world holds; O love, my world is you.” 

Christina G. Rossetti. 

When the Princess Mazaroif stepped on board the 
boat at Brindisi, she unconsciously altered all the 
plans of the people of Charlton House. She changed 
the destiny — if it had not already been fixed — of 
John Treinont. She put a barrier between Sir 
Richard Gordon Travers’ schemes for his son ; and 
she gave to life an aspect never dreamed of by Dick 
Travers in his wildest moments of travel and adven- 
ture. 

It was by no will or plan of her own that the 
Princess Mazaroff came into the lives of these people. 
She was but the instrument of a common Fate; 
that is how the fatalist would read the story of her 


THE PRIlStCESS MAZAROEF. I93 

association with the career of Richard Travers, and 
the fatalist may be right. Or it may be that the philo- 
sophy of every wrong-doing, bringing its sure and 
certain punishment, best fits the case. If the Pioneer 
had given the Princess no reason to believe he loved 
her, no excuse for her visit to his rooms in the Place 
Vendome, — if he had not professed to envy the 
Prince,— she might perhaps have gone home with 
the master of the palace of Kherasoff, and endured 
to the end the companionship of a tyrannical and 
unloved husband. 

In that event what would have happened ? Would 
the lives of Evelyn and Tremont and Travers have 
gone on smoothly to the end? Who knows? If 
Evelyn had not been rescued from danger by Travers, 
she might have given Tremont sufficient encourage- 
ment that day in the rose garden for her reticent lover 
to have proposed for her. Had he done so she would 
have accepted him. Nevertheless, might she still 
not have met Travers m time to have regretted her 
choice, and have broken off her engagement ? Or 
might she not have fallen in love with Travers when 
it was too late and she was the wife of another ? In 
that case what new complication might not have 
taken place ? Evelyn as we know was a strong- 
minded woman, had very modern views of the 
relationships of the sexes, and regarded the rights 
and privileges of women from what is considered to 
be the most enlightened aspect : who knows what 
revolt might have taken possession of her, finding 
herself married to one man and loving another ? 

13 


194 th:^ pbinc):^ss ma^aboPf'. 

Have you not, friendly reader of these pages, often 
looked back on your career at a point where your 
fortunes, for weal or woe, developed powerfully, to 
consider what would have happened to you if at 
that time you had taken one of the other turnings 
on life’s highway than that which had brought you 
to the point of reflection some years later? You 
have regretted that you had not been vouchsafed 
by some kind Providence a forecast of the road you 
had taken in preference to one or two others that 
were at the time equally well open to you. You 
have sorrowed over your mistake. Or it may be, if 
you have been very successful in your life, that you 
have congratulated yourself upon your discrimina- 
tion in not taking one of the other paths that might 
have led to misery, poverty and death. They all 
lead to death, you reflect. If you are happy, you 
shudder at the thought ; if you are miserable, you 
rather welcome it and gloat over it ; but all the 
same, your thoughts are not without regrets, and 
in nine cases out of ten they are wound up with the 
commonplace reflection, “ If I had only known ! ” 

Dick Travers had been in this frame of mind 
more or less ever since he left Charlton- Glee ve, in 
possession of that bright jewel, a good woman’s 
love. He had qualms of conscience, not only as 
touching his friend Tremont, but his desertion of 
the passionate, reckless, loving woman who was 
still waiting for him in Paris. He knew she was 
waiting for him still, because his man Hellish had 
been over to the gay city and had seen her. 


TUE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 195 

Mellish was a quiet, discreet valet, as we have 
seen. He had been charged with a mission to Paris 
on the very day when Travers had returned to the 
Old Hall from Charlton-Cleeve ; and he had tul- 
filled his ambassadorship with diplomatic judgment. 
He had watched his opportunity to meet Estelle : 
and without answering her many questions as to 
Milord Travers, he had learnt from her what his 
master desired to know, namely, ‘‘all about the 
Princess, where she was, how she was, what she 
was doing.” He had learnt that she was inconsola- 
ble ; that she had been very ill and had recovered ; 
that she had been induced to seek medical advice ; 
that she was better, but not the same beautiful 
woman she was, when Milord was in Paris ; that 
she lived in the hope of his return ; that she had 
written to him in England, but without receiving 
any reply ; and then Mellish had come to the con- 
clusion that it would be well for him to wait upon 
her ladyship with the gift and the letter which his 
master had entrusted to his discretion. 

Mellish had been ushered into the Princess’s 
presence by Estelle ; and had unfolded his mission. 
He was, as he had explained to his master just a 
little surprised at the gorgeous dress the Princess 
wore, being ill, as Estelle had said, “ but women are 
rummuns,” was his comment, “whether they be 
princess or peasant ” ; and she was still very hand- 
some he begged to state, for all that she was thin- 
ner, and she received his letter and read it, with a 
face that was pale and flushed, and then pale again ; 


196 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

and when she had read it, she simply asked where 
Mr. Travers lived in Yorkshire, and why he had 
not written before ; was it that he had gone home 
to his own marriage, or to that of his sister, as he 
had declared ? 

“ And then,” said Mellish, continuing the account 
of his interview, “ I made so bold as to say you had 
no idea of being married ; but that your sister. Miss 
Gertrude, was engaged ; ‘ and is not your Milord 
Travers engaged, as you know?’ she said, and I 
said, it was my humble duty to wait upon her with 
the letter and the parcel, and to inquire after her 
health, inasmuch as my master was anxious to know, 
as he could not come to Paris, and feared she might 
have gone home to Kherasoff ; and that being so, I 
‘was to travel on and find out if she needed your ser- 
vice, or advice, or words to that effect ; and then she 
was angry, and said she would write to you, and I 
was to come again in an hour ; and I did, and she had 
no letter ready, but her thanks to Monsieur Travers, 
and you should hear from her ; and I had a kind of 
feeling that I was followed when I left ; and I soon 
knew I was, for though I went round about to my 
hotel, I saw the same man on the other side the 
street, that I saw in the Place ; and I saw him at 
the station and on the boat, also at Charmg Cross, 
at the Great ISTorthern, and at York, when I got to 
the end of my journey ; and it is that, sir, as makes 
me uncomfortable ! ” 

If Travers had only known what would have been 
the upshot of his fiirtation on board the Orient! 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


197 


He still professed to regard the whole thing as a 
mere flirtation. But he knew it was somethmg more 
than that ; something at least of terrible moment to 
the Princess. He tried to lull the reproofs of his 
conscience, to foiget, to put back the story of his 
month in Paris, to count it out of date. He had 
also encouraged a vague hope that the Princess had 
forgotten him, and might perhaps have gone home 
to her husband. The brightness of the sunshine of 
his love for Evelyn made darkness of everything 
else. It burnt up every feeling he had for the 
Princess, except one of pity. He heartily pitied the 
Russian beauty ; pitied her for her love. He strove 
to forget her all the same, and had hoped, as he 
desired that she might forget him. But the Princess 
could not forget him. She remembered every word 
of love he had ever uttered to her. She recalled all 
he had said on those moonlight nights at sea. She 
cherished the remembrance of her happy time in the 
Place Vendome, in the very rooms where she still 
lived, and she remembered at what sacriflce she had 
enjoyed his love and companionship — loss of name, 
credit, position and loss of means — for latterly she 
had begun to see the end of her money, and she was 
too proud too use the flnancial privileges which Tra- 
vers had given her. Forget! Forgive! Never! 

Travers wondered if he ought to tell Evelyn about 
the Princess ; she was a woman of common-sense, 
had no narrow views concerning the peccadilloes of 
men, or the mistakes of women ; she had read the 
modern books of wise men and women on these 


198 the princess mazaroff. 

subjects ; and yet he felt that there was a purity 
and innocence, even in her mention of these things, 
that seemed to lift questionable subjects almost upon 
a religious platform. He had a great mind on his 
next visit to Charlton- Cleeve to tell Evelyn how 
and where he was living, when they met in the 
Place Vendome. 

It goes without saying that his first visit had been 
almost immediately followed by a second to Charl- 
ton- Cleeve, and that the Somerses had been driven 
with all speed by coach to The Old Hall. The en- 
gagement of the lovers had been quickly ratified, 
and the date of the wedding appointed ; Evelyn was 
so firm with her parents, so infatuated, and Travers 
so anxious to “ settle down,” as his father called it. 
Moreover, there was no reason for delay. The match 
was what would be called a very good one for all 
concerned. Sir Richard delighted m it. “ No more 
African expeditions,” he would say, “when once 
Dick is fairly settled ; ” and indeed, Dick felt all 
the inclination to study the interests of Middles- 
borough and the Yorkshire estate, that his father 
desired, which simply meant that at last he was 
deeply in love ; as madly in a way as the Princess 
was, when she laid at his feet reputation, honour, 
position, everything woman holds dear. 

It is strange that the friendship of Tremont and 
Travers still continued. “ True love is rare, true 
friendship still rarer.” Tremont’s friendship for 
Travers was grafted upon a nobler sentiment than 
the friendship ot Travers for Tremont. The Rector’s 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


190 


was a strong, fervent nature, sincere, true. Travers 
wanted to be just as good and true, and once in a 
way thought he was. Travel and association with 
the world had broadened his mind without concen- 
trating his affections. Tremont’s love for Travers 
was the boyish love of admiration, and the instinct 
of friendship. To him Travers was the happy, 
living remembrance of college that he had taken home 
and established among his treasures. Travers was 
grateful. He liked to be admired by Tremont. It 
was an endorsement of good fellowship, the good 
word of Tremont. But in his life there had been 
competing attractions. He had seen many new 
faces, made many acquaintances, since he had parted 
with Tremont ; and habit had confirmed his capacity 
to do without his friend. His life and its ways were 
wide apart from those of Tremont. But all the same 
such friendship as he had to give he gave. He had 
all the time regarded Tremont as his dearest friend ; 
and now’ that he had returned home to rob him of 
the woman he loved, Travers felt as deeply and as 
keenly as his nature would permit the sacrifice 
which he believed Tremont was making for him, 
when he not only still continued his friendship, but 
had voluntarily offered to be his “ best man ” at the 
wedding. The truth is, Tremont could not endure 
the idea of anything separating him from the right 
and privilege of meeting Evelyn, and still having 
her personal friendship and regard. 

John Tremont, in the eyes of Mrs. Winnington, 
had made a tremendous sacrifice for his friend. She 


200 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


had induced Mr. and Mrs. Somers to think so too ; 
but Tremont felt that he had made no sacrifice. 
He loved Evelyn, it is true ; he acknowledged that 
to himself ; but he loved her too well to make her 
unhappy. It was not her fault that she could not 
feel towards him as he felt towards her. Nor was 
Travers to blame for loving her. The truth is he 
had loved her before he had met her at Charlton 
Manor. Fate had ordained it. Fate or Providence. 
They had met in Paris; Travers had saved her 
life, so Somers said, and he was entitled to the 
happiness of making Evelyn his life’s companion. 

This is how John Tremont regarded the forth- 
coming marriage of his two friends. He called 
them his two friends when he spoke of them. He 
tried to bury his love for Evelyn deep in his heart, 
and he did so bury it, but he watched over the grave 
of his hopes and ambitions, watched over it and 
sorrowed. From the grave of his love there sprung 
the lovely fiower of resignation, and his friendship 
for Travers went on blossoming by its side. 

Somers had made a.point of talking of the engage- 
ment of his daughter on the first opportunity, and 
Tremont had at once responded to his frank inquiries 
as to his feelings for his daughter with the assurance 
that he had never asked Evelyn for her love. If Mrs. 
Winnington had suggested that he had done so, and 
was now sacrificing himself “ on the altar of friend- 
ship,” as she had phrased it, Mrs. Winnington was 
mistaken. At the same time, whatever his feelings 
might be. Miss Somers was the person to be con- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


201 


sidered, and there was no mistake about her feelings 
in regard to his friend Travers, nor Travers’s feelings 
for her. Somers said he was glad to hea^ Tremont 
speak in these terms, because he understood there 
was some little gossip about the affair in the village 
which it might be well to put right ; though he must 
confess that for himself he was very much astonished 
at the turn tilings had taken, and so far as he and 
his dear wife were concerned, they would have much 
preferred to have him for a son-in-law rather than 
his friend, good a fellow as Mr. Travers seemed to 
be, and no doubt was. It had been a cherished idea 
at Cleeve House, at least on the part of himself and 
wife, that there might be a close and lasting alliance 
between Cleeve and Charlton ; in answer to which 
the Rector had said he hoped there would. Nothing 
that he could conceive of was likely to come between 
them ; Travers was his dearest friend. Miss Somers 
was worthy of the best husband in the world, and 
would have her deserts in Richard Travers ; she was 
a very accomplished and charming girl, and as his 
neighbour’s daughter would always have his respect 
and esteem. He did not see, indeed, why they should 
not all rejoice in what had occurred and in the 
marriage to follow. For they would enlarge their 
circle of acquaintances and friends, stretching their 
hands out to Yorkshire, and Yorkshire responding, 
they would thus bring together several families; 
the Traverses were well worth cultivating, and then 
there would in due course be the Selby Howarths, 
and between one and the other there would come 


202 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


about an interchange of courtesies and visits that 
could not fail to be very pleasant for all parties. 

Indeed, the Rector had talked so pleasantly about 
the entire business, that Mr. Grafton Somers had 
gone home under the impression that his sister had, 
as usual, got hold of the wrong end of the stick, as 
he told her, much to her annoyance ; and she had 
left the next day, not on account of this little 
wrangle with her brother, but for other important 
reasons to be hereafter mentioned. As she said 
good-bye, Mrs. Somers remarked that she was more 
than usually superior m her manner, more than 
usually self-confident, and more than usually well 
dressed, and that her last words were, “ I do not like 
this hurried arrangement with Mr. Travers and 
Evelyn. You may say or think, dear, what you 
please, but the Rector was over head and ears in love 
with her, and it is a pity she did not have him ; ” 
which of course was nonsense, as Somers observed, 
“ seeing that the Rector did not ask her, and that 
she is deeply in love with Travers, and that 
Tremont’s friendship for Travers continues, and 
cannot be more strongly exemplified than in the 
fact that he is to be his best man. Furthermore, 
when I questioned Evelyn on the subject the day 
after the Traverses left Charlton Manor, she said, 
‘ My dear father, I should never have married Mr. 
Tremont.’ ” 

The wedding had been fixed for a day late in 
September, early enough, the local gossips had said. 
Miss Somers having only known the young man in 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


203 


the first days of summer ; but other gossips who 
knew better had a mysterious story to tell of Travers 
having saved the girl’s life in foreign lands. It was 
known that every year she and her father went 
abroad, while Mrs. Somers waited at home to join 
them on their return to English soil, and take her 
holiday with them at some English watering-place, 
which showed her good sense ; she was not for gadding 
about in foreign lands, but Miss Somers liked that 
kind of thing, and that might be the reason why she 
had fallen in love with this traveller, who had lived 
among savages, and some said that their blood was 
upon his hands. 

On this point the blacksmith of Charlton -Cleeve, 
who was sitting by the side, of a pint of ale, and 
smoking a long clay pipe, surrounded by several and 
sundry of the tradesmen of the place in the smoking- 
room of the “ Green Man,” remarked sententiously 
that it was better to kill a savage than have a sav- 
age kill you. 

“ Aye,” said the butcher, “ if a man would go to 
they outlandish places, you atter kill or be killed ; 
I ’ear’n as that yere Stanley as wor the prince of 
travellers, ’ed gotten to do for a good many o’ they 
blackies ; and Mr. Travers, I do ’ear say that ’e’s 
ben in some tight places.” 

“No doubt,” remarked the local grocer, “and I 
should say as he could get out on ’em ; he’s a fine 
strapping gentleman ; shall never forget his driving 
in first time with his coach ; well, he was a picter, 
surely ” 


204 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“And he do love his ’osses, and that’s good 
enough for me,” said the principal liveryman of the 
place ; “ loves ’em as if they was ’uman, and when 
a man loves his ’osses like that, I tell ’e any woman 
may be glad to stand up wi’ ’im at the altar ; and 
that’s all I gotten to say.” 

Every man as he spoke glanced towards a stranger 
who sat m a corner right under the celebrated work 
of art entitled “ Napoleon Crossing the Alps,” which 
was the pride of the “ Green Man ” smoke-room ; he 
was not quite a stranger; he had been in the village 
all day, looking at the church, the river, and the 
monastery on the hill ; a traveller, and, the village 
thought, a foreigner. In the evening he had taken 
his place among the “ Green Man ” gossips, and had 
been respectfully given one of the best arm-chairs 
in the most favoured corner. 

“ I suppose you are talking of a wedding ? ” 
remarked the stranger, looking up from his glass of 
soda and brandy — a drink which among the gossips, 
denoted him to be a person of some distinction — and 
taking a fresh cigar from his case. 

“ Why, yes,” said the grocer, who was the best 
informed mau in the room, and spoke with a better 
choice of language than the rest, “ we be talking of 
the union between Miss Somers and Mr. Richard 
Travers, son of Sir Richard Gordon Travers, 
Baronet.” 

“ Yes,” said the stranger, “ and when is the wed- 
ding to take place ? ” 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


205 


« Well, we do ’ear on the 25th of September, but 
that a’in’t what we calls official yet.” 

“ No,” said the liveryman, “ and that’s the very 
word ; it reminds me of the ’sizes.” 

“ Do it, why ? ” asked the butcher. 

“Well, I dunno,” the liveryman replied, “only 
somehow it come into my mind, seein’ as the bride’s 
father, you know (turning to the stranger) is to be 
next ’I Sheriff, and I see it in what the noosepaper 
calls offishal list, or somethin’ that way and so it 
came into my mind.” 

“ Which is quite natural,” remarked the stranger. 
“ There is money in this match, eh ? Is the bride 
rich ? ” 

“ Warmish,” said the liveryman, interrupting the 
grocer, who was a little disconcerted, but jumped 
into the conversation afresh with an authoritative 
cough, “ As my friend was saying, the lady is the 
daughter of one of our wealthiest landowners, and 
as they says, with accumulations ; she is a catch, 
sir ; and they do say as he is too, and a very fine 
estate besides ironworks.” 

Here the conversation became general, and the 
stranger strolled out into the village, and wandered 
over the bridge and down by the river. 

Although it was twilight, and nearly ten o’clock 
at night, all the country side seemed to be haymak- 
ing, and carrying the fragrant grass to various points 
where sweet-smelling ricks were rising up among 
hedgerows and darkening elms. It was the middle 
of July, and there had been warning of rain. The 


ii 06 the princess MAZAROFF. 

stranger was under the medium height, wiry, com- 
pact, watchful. He was the man who had followed 
Mellish ; and had the day before arrived at Chari - 
ton-Cleeve from York. 

He was a man with a history, a man of property, 
owned a chateau near one of the most picturesque 
spots in the Bois de Boulogne ; and yet was only 
known as a detective, though in his official capacity 
he had been used both by Russia and France on 
diplomatic missions where secrecy and discretion 
were of importance ; a curious, strange, inexplic- 
able character, equal to the highest mission of secret 
diplomacy, and willing to accept employment in the 
meanest business ; a police spy, a conspirator, a fop, 
a miser, and, as yet utterly unsuspected by the 
Princess Mazaroff, enamoured — in his mean, self- 
seeking, grovelling, lustful, Caliban way — with the 
unfortunate heroine of this romance. 

The stranger was under the medium height, a 
foreigner, evidently a Frenchman. He was fop- 
pishly dressed. He wore a waxed moustache ; his 
eyes were unusually close together; his features 
were small, except his mouth, which was wide, his 
lips thin, the effect vulpine, but he had a persuasive 
voice, and his manner was self-possessed. He had 
taught himself a eertain frankness of speech, that 
disarmed Dick’s first bad impressions. He was 
watchful without seeming to be watchful. He had 
white, small hands, and he wore a curious signet 
ring, which, if an opportunity arose for mentioning 
the circumstance, he would tell you was given to 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFR 207 

him by the Czar, in recognition of a service rendered 
to His Majesty in connection with a Nihilistic plot 
in St. Petersburg. Mons. Michel Vitro was, it is 
true, well known to the Russian Police, and had 
worked with them and for them on several im- 
portant occasions. He had also been at the same 
time suspected of being equally in the pay of a 
Mhilistic conspirator of distinction and far-reaching 
influence. Prince Mazaroff had known Vitre for 
years ; and the mysterious diplomat, or detective, or 
whatever he chose to call himself, on being sent for 
by the princess, had assured Madame that he would 
count himself honoured by any commission with 
which she might entrust him. She did not notice 
the leer, which he had intended for a sweet expres- 
sion of admiration, that spread over his foxy features 
as he said so ; she had only one thought, her mind 
was away in England, with Travers. She had never 
been to England, but she imagined the castle where 
he might" be, the city, the hunting-field, she knew 
not what ; and she almost envied Vitre, because he 
knew England, had been in Yorkshire, was well 
acquainted with London, and undertook to find 
Travers and convey to him any letter or message 
the Princess might desire to send him ; and so he 
became the bearer of her despairing love-message. 
It was one of those missions that amused him. He 
had often dared to envy the Prince, and he wondered 
at his vile treatment of so lovely a woman. His 
curiosity was piqued in regard to this heroic English 
traveller, who had won her body and soul, as it 


208 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


seemed, as easily as whistling a dog to his side, or 
buying the services of a political agent. 

At York and the Old Hall, he had learnt that Mr. 
Travers was on a coaching trip, and that it was not 
unlikely he might be at Charlton- Cleeve in the middle 
of July. The Princess’s envoy was here therefore 
to wait upon him. On the next morning his oppor- 
tunity came. Early in the day, with crack of whip 
and sound of horn, the familiar coach appeared ; and 
an hour afterwards. Monsieur Vitre was closeted 
with Travers in the library at Charlton Manor. 

“Yes, sir, from the Princess Mazaroff,” said 
Michel Vitr^, after Travers had looked at his card, 
and asked his business, which he had informed the 
servant was of the greatest importance, and had 
brought him all the way from Paris. 

“ I will not detain you. Madame the Princess 
desires me to return you this packet, which you sent 
to her by your servant ; she also requests me to 
deliver to you her reply to your letter : here it is.” 

Travers took from the stranger’s hand the packet 
and the letter, and waited for his further obser- 
vations. 

“ Perhaps you will first read the letter ? ” suggested 
the stranger. 

Travers opened the envelope, which was daintily 
sealed with wax, and roughly translating from the 
elegant French of his correspondent, read as follows 
— “ It is the pity of noble souls to be generous ; but 
love is all things and generous ever ; not with gifts 
alone, but with thoughts. And is it thus you reply 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


209 


to my long, long vigil, to my undying love ? Do you 
come to me ? Or I to you ? Say. If your love is 
dead, the night is come ; but, if you give it to an- 
other it is cnly a woman that knows how she shall 
be revenged. Dearest, I love you still, with all my 
heart. I wait you still — wait month after month, 
the winter, the spring, the summer. Do not break 
all my heart. Come, and save me from despair ! 
Come not, and, in the mind distraught it is hate that 
takes the place of love. I give you back your gift, 
but it may be returned with love ; or bring it with 
your own hand. I lay my head at your feet, dear, 
good, loving friend. — From your patient Anissia.” 

Travers read the letter with varying emotions, 
and did not disguise from the messenger the pain it 
gave him. 

“ Sir,” he said, as he thrust it into his breast- 
pocket, “ I am an infernal scoundrel, and that is the 
long and the short of it.” 

Monsieur Vitre bowed. 

“ I suppose I may speak to you in confidence ? ” 

“ If I may repeat what you say to the Princess.” 

“I leave that to your discretion. Do you know 
the relationship that existed between us for a short 
time ? ” 

“ I only guess.” 

“ You are a man of the world? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Very well ; you will perhaps advise me ? What 
shall I do to satisfy the Princess ? She came to me 
of her own free will. Nay, I will not excuse myself 
14 


* ^ 

210 the princess mazabofe. 

— I encouraged her to do so. But, you see, the affair 
is over. It pains me deeply to find that she does 
not think so ; that her love was a real thing, and 
that mine was — well, I don’t know what. I believe 
there are circumstances which might have kept me 
faithful to her love, and grateful for it. The truth is, 
I hardly know what to say. I cannot return to the 
Princess, nor can I invite her to come to England.” 

“You are to be married?” said the Princess’s 
messenger. 

“ I am,” said Travers. 

“ I learnt the fact in the village here.” 

“Are you the man who followed my servant 
from Paris?” Travers asked, suddenly the remem- 
brance of Mellisli’s report occurring to him for the 
first time during the interview. 

“ T did follow your servant — yes,” said the 
stranger calmly. 

“ By order of the Princess ? ” 

'“Yes. She wrote to you without receiving any 
reply, and she desired to know where she might 
find you^ — at what address. She charged me to 
explain my mission so.” 

“ Anything else ? Look here, my friend, as T 
said just now, you are a man of the world. Well, 
cannot you see that I am in a difficulty of the kind 
that any man may get into; that I am sorry to 
have disturbed the mind of the Princess ; that I 
would willingly make any reparation. Will you 
do me a favour ? ” 

“If I can.” 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 211 

You can, and it shall be acknowledged how you 
please. I will pay you.” 

“ Yes ; what is the fa^v^our ? ” 

“ Do not tell the Princess that I am to be married. 
Let her simply understand that business of the 
gravest importance has kept me at home. Now, 
what is it worth to be my friend to that extent ? ” 

“ I am not a rich man,” said Vitro, mentally 
hugging himself on the quick directness of his lie. 

“ I am,” said Travers. “ Give me your word to 
do what I wish — and it will be really in the Princess’s 
interest ; ” and (taking out a thick pocket-book purse) 
he counted into Yitre’s hand ten ten-pound notes. 

“ It will do no harm to the Princess ? ” asked the 
messenger. 

“None. Moreover, you shall take back to her 
the very message she will welcome; I will go to 
her at the end of the week.” 

“ Will you write to her ? ” 

“ No ; say that I will with my own hand bring 
her this rejected token of my friendship,” and he 
thrust the packet of jewels into his pocket. 

“ Your friendship ? ” the messenger repeated. 

“Yes, my friendship. Have I your word that 
you will do what I wish ? ” 

“ Yes, sir , you have.” 

“Your hand on it, as we say down in Yorkshire,” 
said Travers, taking within his brawny grip the 
hard bony hand of the man whom he thought he 
had bought. 

Michel Yitre returned to the “ Green Man” the 


212 the princess MAZAROFF. 

richer by a hundred pounds, but with something 
he valued at a hundred times the sum. In his 
tortuous way he saw in this bribe from Travers an 
influence which might promote his fortunes with 
Anissia. He saw in Dick’s secret a step on the 
road he wished to travel ; a secret to be exploded at 
the right time in his own interest, a link in the 
chain which he thought he could forge for the 
captive his soul desired. Yes, his soul ; he had one 
— all men have ; and Monsieur Vitre often swore by 
his, and on his honour, too, when he desired to 
strengthen a more than ordinarily audacious lie. 
Lying was an important matter with him; it 
belonged to his profession. It was he who had 
invented some of the most powerful of the lying 
explanations which Russian officials had given to 
Europe in connection with the persecutions of the 
Jews in the provinces of Cherson, Ekaterinoslav, 
Poltawa, Taurida, Kiew, Czeringow, and Podolia 
some eight or ten years prior to his appearance at 
Charlton- Cleeve. A master of his craft, charac- 
teristic of the mercenary spy all over the world (not, 
by the way, to be confounded with the patriotic spy 
of history, who risks his life for his country), he 
was true to nobody, not even to liis employers, not 
even to his hatreds, for he had accepted service 
both for and against the Jews, both for and 
against his country. He was true to his love of 
gain, however, and he was true to his low instinct 
that coveted his neighbour’s wife. After all, you 
may say, he was no worse in this respect than 


TUB PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


213 


Richard Travers. Well, no defence is specially 
offered up in these pages for Richard Travers, 
though it may not be out of place to suggest extenu- 
ating circumstances. 

In Dick’s default there was no deliberate design 
of cruelty. He had been carried away by his 
passion, it is true. He had done a great wrong, 
but he had not done it in what might be called a 
mean fashion. He had a generous heart and a 
liberal hand ; and what is more, he had the soul of 
repentance He would have given half his life to 
have wiped out that month in Paris, and have felt 
worthy of the pure, noble girl who - had accepted 
the homage of his love. But we reap the seed we 
sow, whether we sow it deliberately or in passion, 
whether we sow it carelessly among the good seed, 
or whether we scatter it broadcast without thought 
or care or sense of responsibility. The worst of 
this reaping is that we gather in the good with the 
bad ; we influence the lives and hopes and happi- 
ness of others. Our harvest of wild oats and 
thistles, of nettles and brambles and tares, is not 
for ourselves alone. We force it upon others ; but 
so it is ordained by the flat of Providence, which 
even goes further than the present, and visits the 
sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third 
and fourth generation. 

When the stranger had gone Dick heaved a great 
sigh, flung himself into Tremont’s easiest chair and 
groaned, the perspiration trickling down his face. 

« This will end badly,” he said. “ What shall I 


214 the pbincess mazaroff. 

do ? Go and see her, explain to her, make a friend 
of her instead of an enemy ? Let her understand 
that family considerations do not enable me to do 
what she wishes ? Tell her I do not love her? No; 
she threatened me on that point. But she may have 
changed, and Estelle is my friend. At all hazards 
1 will go and see her. I am a poor weak creature. 
Why don’t I tell Tremont all about it ? Or, what 
would be more honourable, and wiser too, perhaps 
— Evelyn? Would it be wise ? She is unlike other 
women. Is she, though, I wonder? My God, if I 
told her and she threw me off, it would kill me ! I 
knew I was hard hit, when I turned my back upon 
her and her father in Paris ; but I feared Anissia, 
feared they might find us at home. But now I 
would die for her ; and I could not live without her. 
What a coward I am ! ” 

« Ah,” said Tremont, entering the room, “ you are 
alone at last. ^Tour foreign ambassador has gone. 
An invitation to go and govern the land out yonder 
by the Mountains of the Moon ?,” 

“ No, Jack,” Travers replied ; “ a little matter 
connected with my expedition ; just a trifle sad, so 
i will say nothing about it.” 

“ That’s like your good nature, Dick. You always 
were considerate for the feelings of others.” 

“ I wish you would not say these kind of things. 
Jack. 1 really don’t deserve them.” 

“Very well, then; I will try and say something 
cruel.” 

“ Ah, that you cannot do. But I really begin to 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 215 

wish I was worthy of your great friendship for me, 
Jack.” 

“ Nonsense, old fellow,” Trernont replied. “ I have 
all kinds of pleasant messages for you from the 
committee of the Archery Society. They are meeting 
now in the Rectory meadows. Won’t you come? ” 

“ Yes,” said Dick. “ I will change my jacket and 
be with you in five minutes.” 

Dick laid his hand affectionately upon Tremont’s 
arm and left the room. 

“ He is disturbed,” said Trernont. “ What is the 
matter, I wonder.” 

Trernont sat by the open window. Down in the 
meadows he could see the butts set for the shooting. 
There were tents, too, and umbrella chairs, fiags, 
and marking streamers, and one or two groups of 
early arrivals. Among the latter he thought he could 
distinguish Miss Somers, and her father and mother, 
and the gaunt form of his curate, Jabez Odgen. 

“ I suppose it is Evelyn,” he said, turning away 
from the window. “ How much more beautiful she 
has become of late, being settled in her mind, no 
doubt, as Sir Gordon says. Settled — yes; it is a 
great thing to know that your future is settled ; to 
know whether you have won or lost; to get an 
anxious business over. A shrewd, observant fellow. 
Sir Gordon. I begin at length to feel settled myself 
— content to know that I shall live and die a 
bachelor ; and it is really almost pleasant to go to 
Cleeve House in a frank, honest way, without 
embarrassment, everybody knowing that one is 


216 the princess mazauoff. 

there out of pure friendship and neighbourly feeling. 
I am more myself. I no longer angle for Evelyn’s 
soft word, for her sympathetic attention. I am no 
longer an intriguant^ a spy, a lover. Yes, it is a 
good thing to be settled in life, as Sir Gordon says, 
one way or the other ; and after all, there is freedom 
in bachelorhood, and no wife in the world could be 
as constant and as faithful as a good library. Thank 
God for books ! ” 

In the calm July evening, the twilight fell fondly 
about the figures of two lovers in the rose-garden 
of Cleeve House. .The roses were shedding their 
leaves in splashes of pink and yellow, and white 
and red, with here and there streaks of a darker 
hue. The footpaths were soft with the July leaves, 
and every footfall released new perfumes from the 
lovely relics of summer. One of the lovers was 
supremely happy. Evelyn Somers walked in an 
earthly paradise. Love had come to her strangely 
and sudden as we know. She had regarded her heart 
as a dry ember so far as love was concerned. She 
had given up her thoughts to learning, to books, to 
the studies of life that were current among the great 
thinkers of the time. Love had represented to her 
only a weakness of her sex, an indication of non- 
intellectuality. If her heart was that dry ember 
she had imagined, a spark from Cupid’s torch had 
converted it into a burning coal, and she now 
cherished and fanned the heat of it with a willing 
mind. Leaning on the strong arm of Travers, and 
threading the rosy paths of Cleeve in the soft sum- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


217 


mer twilight, she forgot everything but the love she 
had affected to despise. Travers himself was far 
less happy than Evelyn ; for now he could realise 
something of the sufferings of the woman he had 
left in Paris. At last a lover himself, he could 
realise what it might mean to lose the object of his 
affections, not by death, but to be deserted, to be no 
longer loved, to be forgotten, as he had deserted 
and forgotten Anissia. Listening to the sweet, 
wise, loving prattle of Evelyn, his heart ached to 
think of the lonely Anissia waiting for his return — 
waiting, as she said, week after week, month after 
month ; and while he pressed Evelyn to his heart, 
he was revolving in his mind all kinds of plans for 
consohng Anissia. Not one of these various schemes 
quite assumed practical shape ; but the end of every 
one involved the absolute necessity of his visiting 
Paris and taking a last farewell of the unhappy 
Princess Mazaroff. 


218 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“ FROM GRAVE TO GAY.” 

Truelove: A widow, saidst thou, marry a widow! 

, Speedwell : Aye, truly, and ’fore Heaven, the merriest com- 
panion. She hath seen the world, mark ye, and knows where 
’tis weak; the deftest hand at the pasty; if thou’dst be 
happy, yoke thee to a widow; and ’tis none the worse if her 
first good man should ha’ ended his days on the gallows. 

Truelove : Was’t so with thy good dame’s first man ? 

Speedwell : Out upon thee, no. I had an eye to thine own 
quick wooing, for I know the lay of it. As for Mistress 
Speedwell, I’d have thee know, friend Truelove, she be a lady, 
to the manner born, and sits i’ the best pew o’ Sundays. 

Old Play, 

“ I SHALL never marry,” says the young girl. “ I 
shall never marry again,” says the widow. They 
both marry all the same. 

Mr. and Mrs. Edward Wykeham were on their 
honeymoon tour, when Monsieur Michel Vitre, 
diplomat, detective and thief, was conversing with 
Mr. Richard Travers in the supposed interests of 
the Princess Mazaroff. 

Wykeham had proposed to the lively widow, in a 
carriage which they occupied all alone, after the 
Charlton Manor dinner, on their way to Cleeve 
House, only about a mile distant, hut long enough 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROEE. 


219 


for Ted to say all he had to say, long enough 
for the widow to lay her head on his manly breast, 
and confess that really and truly she had never 
met any man with whom she felt she could be so 
happy. 

The next day, in a sentimental ramble among the 
hay-makers of Charlton- Cleeve, and during a rural 
rest upon the trunk of an old oak in the wood by 
the foothills of the Breddons, they came to the con- 
clusion that there was nobody to consult in regard 
to their marriage, and that they would take no one 
into their confidence. The widow said she should 
die of shame if he mentioned the affair to her 
brother, who would give her no peace, and she would 
feel very uncomfortable if Evelyn knew about it ; 
so they decided that their marriage should in every 
way be private, and when and where it should take 
place. They would settle in London. 

Moreover, Mrs. Burford Winnington said she did 
not want to tax her friends for wedding presents — 
she did not say, for a second time. Indeed, she 
entirely ignored her first experiences as a married 
lady ; and in this she was , wise, according to the 
proverbial philosophy of all nations. 

Wykeham’s visit having come to an end, his 
Monday having arrived — he was, as we know, only 
a “ Saturday -to-Mondayer,” at Cleeve House — the 
commercial descendant of the Wykehams left next 
day, with his customary smile, and his customary 
brown morocco bag, the happiest man in the world, 
as he confessed to Mrs. Winnington, and one of the 


220 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


most successful, as he confessed to himself, when 
he arrived at his offices in Lombard Street, to find 
that certain stocks in which he was interested were 
still going up and going up, to his great advantage. 

Within four-and- twenty hours after Wykeham’s 
departure Mrs. Winnington had brought her visit 
to an end. Her brother professed to be greatly 
disappointed that she did not remain at least until 
harvest ; but the widow said she felt she must have 
a little change from England ; she thought Switzer- 
land was necessary indeed to her health ; and any- 
how she would go home and think it over. Somers 
professed to laugh at hor idea of home — a suite of 
chambers on the Thames Embankment 3 but Mrs. 
Winnington was no bad judge of the way to live. 
She had a very complete suite of rooms, charmingly 
furnished, attended by excellent servants, consisting 
of Warton, a butler-footman-and-man-of-all-work, 
and his wife, a clever, capable cook-and-housekeeper ; 
and an experienced maid. Three more faithful 
creatures, she said, did not exist, and sho was prob- 
ably not far wrong. She was thus enabled to go 
away from home at any moment, leaving Warton 
and his wife in charge ; and she ]lia(dL never felt such 
perfect freedom as this. 

And yet she was willing to accept once more the 
direction of a superior authority, and even to con- 
sider the desirability of going once more into house- 
keeping in a regular way , but Wykeham was both 
wise and amenable to control ; and it was at last 
decided that chambers in town and a cottage in the 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


221 


country was the best arrangement they could make. 
Prior, therefore, to the last plunge — and they came 
to the conclusion that marriage being really only a 
civil contract, they would make it in a registrar’s 
office — they made several expeditionary excursions 
into the country, and finally Mr. Wykeham bought 
a house on the hillside near Cookham, overlooking 
the Thames, with gardens almost as extensive as 
those at Cleeve House, together with a sufficient 
number of acres of meadow to give them the free- 
dom of the Thames right down to the river, where 
there was a picturesque boat-house, and a decorative 
stretch of well- constructed walling that kept the 
water deep and clear right along the frontage of the 
entire estate. It was not a large house ; but it was 
pretty, picturesquely shaded on its sunny side with 
trees, and protected on the north with well-banked 
shrubs and out-buildings. 

It took time to settle all this ; but Wykeham had 
a very business-like way of doing things, and the 
question of furnishing was just as easy to him as 
the question of the house and its purchase. He sat 
for long happy hours with his arm round the widow’s 
waist, watching the lights and the dim traffic on the 
river beneath Adelphi Terrace, discussing the style 
and method of furnishing Cookham House ; and the 
subject being well threshed out, he accompanied his 
prospective wife to a certain famous furnisher’s. A 
couple of visits settled the business. By the time 
they were w^ell into the hay-harvest at Charlton- 
Cleeve, Mrs. Edward Wykeham had sent off her 


^22 


TBE phincess mazaboff. 


wedding cards, and bride and bridegroom were off 
to France, Switzerland, and Italy on a summer tour. 

And it is thus we find them in Paris towards the 
end of July, en route, at breakfast at the Hotel 
Bristol, and discussing the forthcoming marriage of 
Evelyn and Mr. Richard Travers. 

“ I always told Tremont he would lose her,” said 
Mrs. Wykeham, pouring out a cup of coffee for the 
happy bridegroom, and doing it with charming 
deftness, the hot milk from one pot, the coffee from 
another, and chatting all the time as freely and as 
pleasantly as if she and Ted had been married for 
at least a year. Wykeham watched his cheerful 
partner in her dainty morning wrapper, a spray of 
full-blown roses fastened with a brooch among a 
little world of frillmg on the front of her dress, and 
listened to all she said with the interest of a lover. 
She certainly looked very attractive, the clever, 
bright, gossiping little widow. There was a halo of 
cheerfulness about her. She radiated happiness ; 
her laugh was infectious: and they were all her 
own, those hashing teeth ; all her own, that brown 
hair with just the faintest suggestion of grey here 
and there. If there was on her cheek the slightest 
hint of a colour that was not her own, it was so 
very trifiing that only a woman would have noticed 
it ; and, as we have said before, the one or two 
wrinkles at the corners of her eyes only added to 
the generous expression of the face, and seemed to 
make the eyes more genial. They were really laugh- 
ing eyes, the widow’s grey orbs— made for mirth ; 


TBE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


223 

and Wykeham, as he contemplated her and sipped 
his coifee, and helped her to chicken, thought to 
himself he would not change her for the most 
beautiful and the most marriageable young girl the 
universe could produce. 

“ Yes, I always told him he was going the wrong 
way,” continued the widow; “ everlastingly preach- 
ing to her about that great hobbledehoy of a fellow 
whose idea of happiness is shooting and running his 
head into jungles and bossing blacks, as our Amer- 
ican friends would say ; and by her side, his heart 
too full to speak of his love, that dear, kind, clever 
Rector, handsome, well-built, and as manageable 
as ” 

“ Ted Wykeham, you were going to say, were you 
not?” remarked the bridegroom, leaning back, 
pushing his plate away and taking out a cigarette- 
case. 

“ No, I don’t think so ; but I will if you like,” she 
said, laughing. 

“Say whatever you please. Loo,” replied the 
bridegroom. “ You don’t mind a cigarette, do you ? 
Would you like one ? ” 

“ No, Ted, no ; that is one of the licences I do not 
approve of. It is all very well in Spain or in Russia, 
and I make no protest when I am there, but I think 
the English woman is right in declining to make a 
habit of smoking.” 

Wykeham loved to call her Loo ; it was such a 
descriptive name, he said ; it was like her ; it was a 
cooing kind of name ; friendly, too ; not stuck up ; no 


224 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


side with it ; sweet, natural, familiar ; he was, he con- 
fessed, terribly gone on the Christian name of Loo. 

On the other hand, Mrs. Wykeham confessed 
that she liked the name of Ted, and, by-and-by, she 
sat near the window in an easy-chair with the last 
new novel, and he composed himself by her side 
with Figaro. 

They both looked up now and then to talk. 
W y keham referred to the business of packing . They 
were to start the next day for Switzerland, and they 
had already been in Paris three days. Ted said. 
Why trouble about packing? Lizzie (Mrs. Wyke- 
ham’s maid) would see that that was all right. As 
for his bags, his man was a treasure in the way of 
leaving a brush here and a boot there. He believed 
he had contributed souvenirs of his travels to every 
hotel in Europe ; but what was the good of bother- 
ing ? Simmons had so many good qualities that his 
carelessness in the matter of packing was evidence 
that he was human; otherwise he would be too 
good a servant to live. 

“ I wonder how they are getting on at Cookham 
House,” said Wykeham, lighting a fresh cigarette 
and stretching his legs as if for a steady gossip. 
“ I wrote to Digges, the architect, and asked him to 
run down and have a look — at the place. — He’s a 
clever chap, Digges, and I thought you would like 
to have his report.” 

Wykeham seemed to encourage his little stam- 
mer, and to make points with it, as Mrs. Wykeham 
had suggested over that never-to-be-forgotten din- 


mE pnmcEss mazabofe. 225 

ner at Charlton Manor, and he had a curious way 
of smiling as if he knew he was doing it. 

“ I am very glad you decided in favour of light 
furniture,” said Mrs. Wykeham, now putting on 
her customary business air, which seemed to de- 
mand the full recognition of her status as Mrs. 
Edward Wykeham, compelling even the narrator 
of these particulars to drop the familiar Loo. “ It 
not only looks cleaner, but it is cleaner than furnish- 
ing in dark woods and draperies.” 

“ Yes,” said Wykeham. “ A jolly little — study 
that will be, overlooking the river beyond the — din- 
ing-room. — Hope to have a little smoking-party 
there now and then in the boating — season. I know 
a lot of fellows who make the river their home — as 
it were, for a few weeks up to the regatta — not 
City fellows exactly — oh, no ; I have some first-rate 
acquaintances West.” 

“ Of course you have,” said Mrs. Wykeham ; “ and 
if you had not, you soon could have — since the” 
(she was going to say the death of Burford Win- 
nington, but she stopped herself just in time) “ Som- 
erses insisted upon my going down there so fre- 
quently the last year or two. I have not been much 
in London during the season ; but I fiatter myself 
there is no woman more welcome in the very best 
society, and when I say the very best, I mean the 
best artistic society.” 

“ Yes, I quite agree with you there — as, indeed, I 
do in all things, eh ? ” 

“You are very good, mv dear.” 

1*5 


226 


rflJ? PitlNCMSS MAZAEOFP. 


“No, I don’t mean that. What I wanted to say 
is, you have such' good — taste, and such great coni- 
mon — sense. My experience of society is not so 
important as yours ; but T always feel happier 
when I dine where there are one or two celebrities — 
writers, artists, or actors.” 

And here Mr. Wykeham mentioned quite a num- 
ber of ladies and gentlemen who had been illus- 
trated ill the pictorial papers, and interviewed, and 
made much of, and whose names are so well known 
that it is not necessary to repeat them in these images ; 
but the mention of them and the houses where he 
had met them showed Mr. Edward Wykeham to 
have mixed in a good set, as, indeed, why should 
he not ? He was, firstly, a man of means (very im- 
portant that) ; secondly, he was a man of taste; 
and thirdly, he was a better listener than he was 
a talker, though he could hold his own in any 
ordinary discussion. 

“ We might have a launch during the regatta,” 
said Mrs. Wykeham. 

“ We will have a laimch all the time,” said Wyke- 
ham. “ I ordered one to be ready for us when we 
return. September is a very good month for the — 
river, though the swells discard it then ; but I am 
inclined to think that both September and October 
are good months. I remember taking some — Ameri- 
can friends, two years ago, from Oxford to Richmond, 
and we had a very — jolly time — lovely weather, har- 
vesting going on ; and my guests said they had seen 
— nothing as lovely in all — their travels.” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAliOl F. 


227 


“Boston people?” asked Mrs. Wykeham. 

“No, from Chicago.” 

“ Really ? Mce ? ” 

“ Oh, very.” 

“ Ladies nice ? ” 

“ There was only one lady — a widow.” 

“ Oh ! ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Pretty ? ” 

“ No, very pleasant — most widows are.” 

Ted was quizzing his wife ; she knew it. 

“ Most widows,” she repeated. 

“ Well, the only widows I have known.” 

“ Known many ? ” 

“ Two.” 

“ Yes?” 

“ The other one was seventy.” 

“ Ted ! ” 

“ Were you getting jealous ?” 

“ Trying to ! ” 

“No love without it, they say ! ” ’ 

“ Very well, then ; I will continue to be jealous of 
that Chicago widow.” 

“ I tell you. Loo, she was a lovely old — lady ; hair 
as white as snow. Her son was with her , he was as 
attentive and kind to her as if she had been his 
sweetheart — good sons, those American fellows ! ” 
“ Good husbands too, the women say.” 

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder; I like the people; 
always very kind to me. Have you ever in your 
travels been to America, my dear ? ” 


228 the princess mazaroff, 

“ Oh, yes, Ted.” 

“ Long since?” 

“ Five years ago.” 

“What part?” 

“ Oh, all over ! ” 

She was on the point of saying that, when Bur- 
ford Winnington elected to visit a country, he did 
the whole business of it thoroughly, and she had 
even formulated a witticism in reference to Chicago 
— going the whole hog ; but she stopped in time and 
merely said, “ Oh, all over.” 

“ San Francisco ? ” asked Wykeham. 

“ Oh, yes, and from San Francisco to Japan.” 

“ What a trip ! ” 

“ And from Japan to Australia ; and thence back 
to the East, whence we started.” 

She felt compelled to say we, but went on rapidly 
afterwards, for while she did not desire to remind 
Wykeham that he had a successful rival even be- 
fore he knew her, she, too, did not want just then 
to think of Bur ford Winnington, who, could he have 
risen from his grave, would certainly have done her 
a mischief, if he could, seeing her calmly sitting by 
the side of a new husband ; for he had been one of 
the most jealous and exacting of men. 

“You are, indeed, a travelled woman,” said 
Wykeham, “not to say a woman of the — world.” 

“ Yes,” she replied ; “ but I don’t think I know any 
valley as lovely as our own little valley of the 
Thames.” 

“ And I hope you will have cause to add, ‘ and no 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


229 


home so happy as our own little house on its — banks, 
near Cookham,’ ” said Ted, taking her bright face 
between his two hands and kissing it. 

“I am sure of it, Ted,” she replied, as Ted 
returned to his seat and his cigarette, beaming with 
happiness ; while Loo reopened the novel which she 
thought she was reading. 

u Why, Ted,” suddenly exclaimed Loo, dropping 
her book into her lap and gazing out of the window, 
“ is not that Mr. Travers ? Why, of course it is ! 
Who could mistake his overgrown figure and his 
big hands and feet ? ” 

“Yes, sure enough,” said Ted, following with his 
eyes the direction of Loo’s. “ He is going into the 
house near the corner of the square.” 

“ Yes ; he rings the concierge’s bell ; a woman 
opens ; he has gone in. How strange ! ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” Wykeham replied ; “ he may 
have business in Paris.” 

“ But surely his business is at Charlton-Cleeve, if 
he is the passionate lover he must have been to have 
captured so quickly our rather cold, statuesque 
Evelyn,” said Mrs. Wykeham. 

“ Where did he appear to be coming from — which 
side of the square, when you saw him ? ” 

“ From the hotel, I believe,” she said. “ Perhaps 
he is staying here. He spoke of the Hotel Bristol, 
don’t you remember, in connection with that affair 
of the carriage, when he saved Evelyn’s life as she 
insists, though T dare say his version is the correct 
one — that he merely went out of his way a few 


230 the princess mazaboff. 

yards to stop a pair of runaway horses. I don’t 
fancy horses run very fast in Paris ; I’ve never seen 
them.” 

« We will inquire,” said Wykeham, “whether he 
is staying in the hotel.” 

He rung, and, in answer, a servant presently 
brought an answer from the office that Monsieur 
Kichard Travers was a guest m the hotel, having 
arrived by the morning mail. 

« Dear me,” said the bride. “ You must see him, 
Ted ; he will tell us all about Cleeve House, and when 
the wedding is to be, and all the rest of the news. 
Poor Maria (Mrs. Somers) ; she must have enough 
on her hands — first the wedding and then the 
shrievalty. We must go down to both functions, 
Ted. The wedding will be a gorgeous business, of 
course : my brother pretends to be a very humble 
person, but he is as proud as Lucifer. He ought to 
have been made sheriff ot the county last year, but 
it went off somehow. He used to speak of the office 
as a bore, yet, whenever one would talk about it, he 
would relate how many javelin men he would have, 
what sort of a breakfast he would give to his 
neighbours and friends before starting for the 
Assizes, and how he would in a general way repre- 
sent her Majesty and feast her Majesty’s judges.” 

“ It is a very honourable office,” said Wykeham ; 
“but for my part the only experience I have had 
of judges does not make me anxious to feast them, 
or indeed to have anything — to do with them ; in- 
deed, official life in any shape has no attractions for 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 231 

me the greatest of all the Wykehams. — William of 
that ilk was a big swell — in his way, but he had his 
troubles officially, and 1 am inclined — to think the 
private station, as the poet says — I think it was a 
poet who said so — is the happiest — what do you 
think ? ” 

I quite agree with you, dear.” 

“ What position could be happier than — ours ? 
Do we want to be the Lord and Lady Mayoress, for 
example ? ” 

“ Oh, good gracious, no ! ” said Mrs. Wykeham 
promptly, and with quite a little shudder. 

“ That’s all right,” said Wykeham. “ Well, what 
do you think ? — shall I go down and leave cards 
upon Travers — he can’t know we are here. Nobody 
who knows us — except ourselves, can know that.” 

“ I think I would, dear ; yes, by all means,” said 
Loo, laying aside her book, arranging her skirts and 
remarking that she would go and dress, and that, 
however unfashionable it might be, both as to the 
season and the hour, she thought a drive in the Bois 
would be pleasant. 

« Why, certainly,” said Ted, giving her a right 
hearty kiss. “ I shall just put on my coat, go down 
and leave — those cards, and walk round to the bank, 
and I will be back again by the time — you are 
ready.” 


232 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF, 


CHAPTER XV. 

“ NOT WISELY BUT TOO WELL.” 

“ Love without esteem cannot reach far, nor rise very high ; 
it is an angel with but one wing.” — Dumas. 

“ When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness 
takes his leave.” — Shakespeare. 

While the Wykehams were chatting over breakfast 
at the hotel, the Princess Mazaroff was preparing to 
receive her love, as she called Travers, her dear 
Deek, her English hero, her kind, good friend. Es- 
telle was no less enthusiastic than her mistress ; and 
both had impressed Vitre with a tremendous sense 
of his own importance when he had brought them 
the good news from England. 

Michel Vitre, indeed, felt that he had risen so much 
in the estimation of the Princess, that he had ven- 
tured to kiss her hand with unusual empressement ; 
and when he left he had dared most familiarly to 
chuck Estelle under the chin, and call her his dear 
little Estelle, for which, as she afterwards told her 
mistress, she liad been very much inclined to smack 
his face ; whereas, in the first great joy of hLs good 
news, she could have kissed the waxed and foxy 
dandy right upon his ugly mouth. 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 233 

“ Ah, my dear Estelle, I tell you he come back 
to me,” said the Princess, as if this had not been 
Estelle’s continual prophecy. 

“ Oui, madam e,” Estelle replied, brushing the 
Princess’s gold-red hair. “Milord Travers is a 
gentleman; he is true. I tell you, madame, the 
Englishman his word is his bond.” 

Estelle was overjoyed to see the eyes of the 
Princess brighten, the colour come and go upon her 
cheek, delighted to see her figure assume once more 
its wonted dignity. 

“Ah, sweet madame, you are happy again; you 
stand erect, you do not stoop your head, your 
eyes are soft and dreamy ; you are beautiful once 
more.” 

“ Dear Estelle,” the Princess replied, kissing her 
devoted companion ; “ you are the best little woman 
in all the wide, wide world.” 

Her toilette completed, the Princess stood before 
a tall cheval glass, and approved of herself. If she 
had lost weight, if her cheeks were just a trifie 
sunken, her figure was more refined than heretofore, 
her beauty less aggressive, her carriage, if possible, 
more queenly, the expression of her eyes less self- 
conscious ; she had suffered, and there was a new 
expression in her violet eyes that was softer, more 
sympathetic, than formerly. To a cultivated fancy, 
to an intelligent appreciation, she was more dan- 
gerous in her beauty after her long vigil, than when 
Travers had seen her first, stepping on board the 
boat at Brindisi, with the air of a conquering queen 


234 the princess mazarofk 

of beauty, challenging rivalry and conscious of all 
her powers. It is one of the heroes of a short story 
by De Maupassant who says : “You know how 
beautiful the Russian women are, or how beautiful 
they seem to us, with their fine nostrils, with their 
delicate mouths, with their eyes of an indefinable 
colour — a sort of blue-grey, set close together — and 
with that grace of theirs, which is cold and a little 
hard. They have about them something naughty 
and seductive, and gentle, something tender and 
severe, which is altogether charming to a French- 
man.” He need not be a Frenchman to admire such 
a type of woman ; but the Princess was even a rarer 
example of beauty than that described by De Mau- 
passant. The hardness of the average Russian 
beauty was not there, and the eyes were not unduly 
close, and they were of a wonderful softness until 
they blazed up, as they had done now and then 
under the inspiration of her wrongs ; and she had a 
firmness and breadth of chin which gave to her face 
a strength that was a little out of harmony with the 
loving expression of her eyes. There was, to use a 
vulgarism, just a bit of the devil behind the mask of 
the angel in Anissia’s composition. 

“You have heard from Kherasoff this morning, 
Estelle, is it not so ? ” 

“ Oui, madame ; but I would not disarrange your 
thoughts. I desired to make you acquainted with 
the news of Kherasoff later.” 

“ Nothing can now disarrange my thoughts,” said 
the Princess, as she continued to survey herself 


THE PRmCESS MA2AR0FE, 235 

in the glass. “ Is there news of the tyrant — the 
Prince ? ” 

“ He is older, he grow weaker, but he find amuse- 
ment,” said Estelle, glancing at a letter which she 
drew from her pocket. 

“ Yes,” said the Prmcess ; “ who are the ladies ? ” 

“ That I know not ; but the people say you were 
much too good for him ; they do not wonder that at 
last you leave him, never to return.” 

“ It is true,” said the Princess, taking a seat 
before the glass, and fanning herself with a large 
crimson fan that refiected a blushing hue upon her 
white dress and upon her happy, smiling face. 

“ And the Jews have been driven out, and their 
houses burnt,” continued Estelle ; “ and the Prince 
refused to protect them, and Ivan’s mother was 
stoned for harbouring a woman and her two 
children.” 

“ Yes,” said the Princess, paying little or no 
attention to this part of the letter ; “ and the tyrant, 
what more of him ? ” 

“Nothing, Princess,” said Estelle. 

“ And your lover, the sturdy Meetr Meetrich ? ” 
said the Princess. 

“ It is from Meetrich the letter comes, written by 
the good priest Nikita, who sends his greetings to 
Madame the Princess.” 

“ So ? ” was the only acknowledgment she made 
of the priestly greeting. “ And now, Estelle, we 
will go into the salon. Kiss my hand, little woman, 
and accept my thanks for your goodness to me. 


2S6 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFE 


Without it I should have gone mad ; without it I 
should have killed myself. Nay, do not frown ; it is 
true. Come.” 

The Prmcess had moved into the rooms previously 
occupied by Travers, and here she awaited his 
coming. 

When the Wykehams saw Dick striding along to 
the house in the Place Vendome, he had made Uj^) 
his mind. Yes, he had made it up irrevocably, as 
he thought. He would reason with Anissia, advise 
her to make it up with the Prince, tell her of his 
family and their prejudices against divorce; their 
dread of a mesalliance ; his father’s devotion to him ; 
how it would break the old man’s heart if his son 
should not fulfil his wishes. If she hated the Prince 
so much that a reconciliation was impossible, he would 
advise her to remain in Paris, and let him make her 
an allowance out of pure friendship. He would beg 
her to let him still be her friend — her dear, true 
friend. Should she encourage him, in this strain, 
he would even go so far as to tell her of his forth- 
coming marriage ; ask her forgiveness, appeal to her 
as a woman of the world, a woman of experience ; 
offer her in return, everything, anything. 

Yes, he had quite made up his mind. He had not 
resolved how he would begin. He had not framed 
the lines of his opening speech. What he had to 
say was all in his mind. It would depend on 
circumstances in what order it should come. He 
thought of men he had known who had had mis- 
tresses until they were married, and how they had 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


237 


pensioned them ; indeed, he had encouraged himself 
to think that this was quite a common practice 
among the aristocracy. 

At the same time, he flattered his own morality 
with the reflection that he had never sinned before 
in this way ; that what he had done had been forced 
upon him, and that he had repented of it after the 
first week. There was a difterence, he argued, be- 
tween the vice that was sought and encouraged, and 
the vice that was the result of temptation, and such 
temx)tation ! Was ever man assailed by so much 
beauty? Was ever man placed in a position such 
as his on that night when the Princess sought 
his protection? Would to Heaven he had never 
seen her! Or that he had never seen Evelyn 
Somers ! 

It was not a case of how happy could I be with 
either ; for Travers was just as much infatuated 
with Evelyn as the Princess was infatuated with 
him. He loved Evelyn with manly honour and 
devotion. The Princess loved him with the passion 
of a strong, loving, jealous temperament, had sacri- 
ficed everything for her love, had literally flung 
herself at his feet, and could make any sacrifice for 
him but the one he had resolved to ask of her. He 
was determined to ask it all the same. Yes, he 
would be frank and fearless. He pressed his lips 
tightly together, and planted his foot firmly as he 
entered the house where Anissia was waiting for 
him. Whatever happened it was necessary that he 
should break with her, and he would ; yes, he would. 


238 


THE PEINCESS MAZAROEF. 


indeed — generously, of course, kindly, even lovingly, 
but firmly ; yes, firm as a rock. 

He had hardly entered the familiar rooms when 
the Princess fiung herself into his arms and sobbed 
with joy. 

“ Oh, my love,” she said, between her sobs, “ I 
knew you would come. I knew you could not desert 
your poor Anissia. Oh, my dearest, I trusted you, 
and you are here.” 

Then she drew her head from his neck to look at 
him, and he bent over her and kissed her forehead. 

“I do not dream? No, it is true! And I have 
dreamt it so often. But it has come true, just in 
this way ! You had not left me ; business had kept 
you ; the expedition ; the father, the estate, the 
marriage of your sister. Ah, my God I I know it 
all. Do not excuse yourself ; I am satisfied. I for- 
get all my misery ; I only remember my happiness, 
our happiness, here, where all is sanctified to our 
love.” 

“ Yes,” he said, with a sigh, “you have been very 
good.” 

“No, no, only patient, for that I knew you would 
come the moment it was possible.” 

“ Yes,” he said, his arm round her waist, his con- 
fession trembling upon his lips, but remaining there. 
How could he tell her what he meant to tell her in 
response to such an outbreak of welcome ? 

. They sat down together upon the couch above 
which still hung the trophies of Africa which he 
had left there, if not in token of his return, at least 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 239 

as a dumb guarantee that he had no intencion of 
breaking his word. 

“ You have been ill ? ” he said, taking her hand 
in his. 

“ Oh, no, only a little sad. Do I look sick ? ” 

“ No, dear, you look lovely,” and he felt a touch 
of the former seductiveness of her beauty. 

She kissed his hand, she laid her head upon his 
shoulder, she talked and laughed like a child, and 
once or twice the tears came into her eyes, and he 
was fain to kiss them away. He could no more 
have begun to tell her of his plans just at that time 
than he could have struck her. He would await a 
better opportunity. He would go and make some 
purchases in the afternoon, and return in the even- 
ing. At present he would hear all she had to say, 
gather from her what she hoped to do in the future, 
and at an opportune moment drop a hint that he 
would have to be away from her a long, long time, 
— say, on another expedition to Africa. 

Presently the Princess, with a busy, housekeeper- 
like air, said, “ But where is your luggage ? Have 
you sent it to your room ? And Mellish, your excel- 
lent man, is he with you still ? ” 

“ I did not bring Mellish,” Dick answered, “ and 
the truth is I went to the hotel.” 

“ To the hotel ! ” she said, with some surprise. 

“ Yes ; the Bristol.” 

“Where your friend, was that you visit before ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

« Is he a guest there at this time ? ” 


240 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“No.” 

“ Any other friend of yours there ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Then why ? ” she exclaimed. 

“ Oh, I thought it might he that you would prefer 
that ” 

“You at the hotel? — I here?” she exclaimed, 
interrupting him ; “ oh, my love ! ” 

Then she sat at his feet, and kissed his hands ; 
and the next moment rose, with the dignity of a 
queen who had been doing an enforced homage to 
a conqueror. 

She went to the bell, and rang it with some vehe- 
mence. 

“ The concierge shall fetch your baggage, and take 
it to your room.” 

Then the conqueror himself grovelled in his 
imagination, and had not the heart to protest. 

The concierge came, spectacles on nose, rubbing 
his hands and face expectant. He looked first at 
Travers and then at the Princess. 

“ Monsieur’s baggage at the Hotel Bristol — send 
for it. Monsieur is at home; you will place his 
baggage in his room.” 

“ Oui, madame,” replied the concierge, bowing. 

“ Stay,” said Travers, rising, taking out his purse 
and giving the concierge some bank-notes ; “ you will 
pay the bill ; also say Mr. Travers will call this after- 
noon or this evening.” 

The concierge bowed himself out, and the Princess 
opened the door of the adjoining room. 


THE PBIKCE8S MAZAROFF. 


U1 


“ There ! It is as you leave it. You see — the 
same pictures, the same cabinet, the same everything. 
Ah, my love, and it is now as if you had never gone 
away ; but it is sweet that you come with the sun- 
shine, and the song of the birds and the flowers, and 
all things that are good.” 

It is again borne in upon him how beautiful she 
is, how she loves him, what sacriflces she has made 
for him, what a scoundrel he is ; and so on. 

It was with difficulty that he induced her to per- 
mit him to go out on some business which he had 
with the bank ; she proposed to order the carriage 
and accompany him, but he persuaded her that it 
would be best that he went alone, and presently she 
complied. He promised he would return in an hour 
at the furthest, and then they would drive out, and 
in the evening dine tUe-dj-tete at home. 

Once more in the open air Travers breathed freely, 
but his resolutions were all shaken to pieces, his 
mind in a state of the most utter confusion. 

He thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked 
— he knew not whither — walked and walked, 
through dusty streets, through devious ways, re- 
volving all manner of plans that should make a way 
out of his difficulties. 

Strange that a man so clever in administrating his 
ordinary worldly affairs, so clear in the conduct of 
his African expedition, so cool in face of danger, so 
full of resource; capable of commanding an army, 
his comrades said ; always thinking ahead of events, 
never at a loss, quick, prompt. Arm, a born leader, 
16 


242 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

a scientist of no mean capacity — strange that such 
a man should be so helpless in the hands of a woman. 

But Travers was between two fires— nay, a pris- 
oner to circumstances. Perhaps his inexperience of 
women stood in his way. He was assuredly more 
a victim to his virtues than to his vices. All his 
troubles were the result of one false step, one excur- 
sion outside the bounds of honour. Had he been a 
constant truant in this direction he would, perchance, 
have easily found a way out of his difficulties. Or, 
perhaps, he would never have found himself in such 
a dilemma ; he would have been incapable of the pure 
love he felt for Evelyn Somers. 

Of course, the straight way is the best, and the 
truth is the best also. Travers should have run the 
risk of a confession to Evelyn. He should have made 
a frank avowal of the situation to the Princess. At 
least, this would be the view of a man of affairs, 
the practical philosopher, and Travers himself had 
thought in this direction, we know, and had cal- 
culated the results. He believed that Evelyn would 
scorn him. Her lofty views of duty and honour, her 
ideal of the sacred endowment of love, would never 
have allowed her to give her hand to him in face of 
such a confession. And Anissia! To what lengths 
of passion and vengeance might not her passionate 
nature lead l^er ? She was a fanatic in her ideas of 
love, and she deemed the links that bound her and 
Travers stronger and more sacred than the mere lip- 
vows she had made to the Prince her husband. 

At last the victim of love’s vagaries returned to 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


243 


the Place Vendome, foot-sore, weary, with all manner 
of curious apologies, and in his mind new excuses for 
separating from the Princess ; the principal one, now 
being what was a little while before only to be a 
hint, namely a forecast of a new expedition he would 
have to make, a fresh march into Central Africa. 
The truth seeming impossible, he had made up his 
mind to lie. If his trouble could only have been 
converted into some tangible thing, a savage, an 
army that he could have tackled with his physical 
strength, he would have grappled with it straight- 
way and with courage. 

But his difficulty was a woman who loved him not 
wisely but too well ; and so he had to lie, and he hed 
right up to the situation. Foremost in his lies was 
the ambitious father, who desired him to complete 
the work he had begun, and to whom another expe- 
dition to Africa was the hope of his life. 

Travers fortified his lies and his courage with 
champagne. Anissia dried her tears in his love, and 
lived for the moment. She had waited so long for 
him, she would not listen to words of parting; no, 
not until the last moment. And why could she not 
go with him ? She had travelled through Russia. 
She had borne the trials of an expedition into Asia. 
She was strong, brave, and she did not mind if she 
died so that he was by her side. 

How was mortal man to get away from such a 
love as this ? — not the love of a Delilah, but the love 
of a true woman who had never loved before. A 
wife ? yes, but how a wife ? Bought and sold, inhu- 


244 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


manly treated, abused, insulted ; surely there was a 
great deal to be said for this wayward, passionate 
woman ? But who would say it for her ? Who 
would defend her? Her case fairly represented, 
would Evelyn Somers forgive her? Travers had 
thought of this only to remember that women are 
rather hard on women ; and the hackneyed lines of 
Byron had come into his mind — 

“And lovelier things have mercy shown 
To every failing but their own, 

And every woe a tear may claim 
Except an erring sister’s shame.’^ 

But he did not know Evelyn well enough. He 
should have trusted her. Perhaps he mostly feared 
to fall in her estimation. She had set such store by 
all Tremont had said of him : hero and saint, strong 
man, true friend, a respecter of women, of a rare 
ambition. Tremont had filled her soul with the 
praises of his friend ; how dared he show her the real 
man? How dare he stand before her and say, “Be- 
hold an impostor ” ? He had, however, gauged the 
disposition of Anissia. She would brook no rival ; 
she would forgive no woman who stepped between 
her and the man she had selected for her own; she 
only remembered his words, “ I love you,” uttered 
when it was dangerous to utter them, repeated in 
the sweet privacy of what to her was a honey- 
moon of love, the forerunner of a life of happiness. 

It was nearly a week before Dick got away from 
P^ris, How he had succeeded in tearing himself 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 245 

from the arms of the woman he had deceived he 
hardly knew ; but, steaming out of Paris and beat- 
ing across the Channel, and steaming into London, 
he had sat for hours without moving ; he had not 
attempted to read ; he had smoked many cigars ; 
but he could do nothing but sit still and wonder 
what the end of it all would be. He was very sad 
and miserable, but with it all there was a great 
longing in his heart for Cleeve and the rose garden, 
for Evelyn and her sweet pure face, the thought of 
which vulgarised and be-littled the beauty of Anissia, 
and made his intercourse with the Russian beauty 
a sin, not against her, but against Evelyn Somers. 
So strange is the love of man and woman ! 


246 


TJIE FJtINCESS MAZABOFF, 


CHAPTER XVI. 

A VIPER THAT BITES. 

“ Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree, 

Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard 
Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye. 

To save her blossoms and defend her fruit 
From the rash hand of bold incontinence. 

You may as well spread out the unsunn’ d heaps 
Of miser’s treasure by an outlaw’s den. 

And tell me it is safe, as bid me hope 
Danger will wink on opportunity. 

And let a single helpless maiden pass 
Uninjured in this wild surrounding waste 

Milton. 

A BEAUTIFUL woHian is born to an inheritance of 
many troubles. Envied by her own sex, she is more 
frequently the cause of an unholy desire in man 
than a sincere affection. Furthermore, to add to her 
perplexities, Nature gives her more sail than ballast. 
The beauty of a yacht is noticeable m a sea of 
moderate power ; but in the tempest the glory of 
her white sweeping wings is her destruction. 

From her earliest girlhood the Princess Mazaroff 
was the victim of her beauty. She was bought in 
the matrimonial market by a profligate, whose title 
and money were regarded, by the little world in 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 247 

which she was reared, as a fine endowment for a 
young girl whose face was her fortune. 

There were those, however, in the scattered and 
curious village of Kherasoff who said from the first 
that she was “ too good for the Prince,” and who, 
when his death was announced, remarked, “ Ah, now 
the lovely barina is free.” 

It was in this spirit that the Princess received the 
news of her husband’s death. It was brought to 
her a month after the second visit of her English 
lover. The messenger was Monsieur Michel Yitre. 

“ I bring you good news and bad, ” he said, as he 
was ushered into her presence, the Princess by a 
sign requiring Estelle not to leave the room. 

“ Yes, Monsieur Yitre ; tell me the bad news first 
that I may lean for support on the good.” 

“ I said good and bad ; perhaps I should have 
said good news without the bad.” 

“ You make me a riddle,” answered the Princess, 
seating herself and letting her eyes rest inquiringly 
upon his face. They penetrated to his inmost little 
soul, and thrilled it. 

« It is a riddle I hope I may be permitted to help 
you to solve,” he said, with an attempt at a sym- 
pathetic smile that was only a grimace in the eyes 
of the Princess. 

“Yes, you are mysterious. Estelle, offer mon- 
sieur a chair.” 

Estelle motioned the messenger of “ good news 
and bad ” to a seat. 

He sat down a trifie uneasily. He rubbed hi^ 


248 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

well- shaven chin reflectively as if he wore a beard 
instead of a moustache that was waxed into a couple 
of defiant points. 

“ You need not hesitate, sir, ” said the Princess ; 
“ I can bear with your news whatever it may be. I 
have experience of both joy and sorrow ; of sorrow 
most, is it not so, Estelle ? ” 

“ Oui, madame ; Monsieur Vitre need not delay.” 

“Your husband, the Prince Mazaroff, is dead,” 
said Vitre with the air of one who relates a piece 
of striking news indeed. 

Estelle bent her head and crossed herself. 

The Princess, having paused as if to realise the 
full effect of Vitre’s announcement, exclaimed, “ May 
the good saints show him more mercy than he 
showed to me ! ” 

Then she rose and paced the apartment. “ Free,” 
she was saying to herself, “ free to marry the man 
I love ! ” 

Michel Vitre watched her with undisguised ad- 
miration. She was dressed in an easy flowing 
gown that gave to her superb figure. Her hair was 
dressed high upon her head, and fastened with a 
great jewelled pin. There was in her eyes a flash 
of exultation strangely out of harmony with at least 
the customary assumption of sorrow that accompanies 
such a message as that which she had just received. 
But she was a child of Nature. She did not disguise 
the satisfaction she felt in the knowledge that the 
man who had shadowed her young life and blighted 
her hopes of womanly happiness was dead, Onco 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF, 249 

she had said to Travers, “ If I were a widow, then 
would you not take me to your home to be your 
wife ? I am of a good family — I am the barina, too, 
the Princess in your language. ” Dick, at the mo- 
ment she asked him this, would have answered 
“ Yes” to any question ; but as some thoughtful 
sage hath said, “ The comparison of love to fire 
holds in one respect, that the fiercer it burns the 
sooner it is extinguished.” 

“You may command me, ” said Vitre, when the 
Princess paused to look at him. 

“ When I desire to see you I will send for you,” 
she answered. “ At present I wish to be private,” 
and with a slight curtsey she left the room. 

“Estelle,” said Monsieur Vitre, “you are my 
friend.” 

“ I am not your enemy. Monsieur Vitre, nor any 
man’s,” said the smart little woman, looking at 
him inquiringly. 

“Very well; it will pay you to be my friend,” 
he said, in a very conciliatory tone of voice. 

“ How much ? ” she asked, smiling coquettishly. 

« thousand francs, ” he replied, with a busi- 
ness air. 

“ A nice little sum,” said Estelle. 

“Yes, and I can make it still larger, still nicer.” 

“ Indeed, Monsieur Vitre is rich ? ” 

“ Monsieur Vitre has always been rich,” he an- 
swered. 

“ Is that so ? And yet Monsieur Vitre is at the 
beck and call of the police, and no one has a very 


250 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


good word to say for him,” Estelle replied, resenting 
his boastful manner. 

“No? Who has a bad one to say?” he asked, 
with a frown. 

“Oh, I do not think of any one in particular.” 

“ Not the Princess ? ” 

“ Oh, no ; she is too good ; she thinks well of every- 
body.” 

“ Indeed ! At all events she employs me on her 
most secret mission : I fulfil it well, eh ? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Estelle. 

“ And to-day I bring her great news, is it not so? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Estelle, with a little movement 
of impatience. 

“ Do you not desire to hear what I propose ? ” 

“ Certamly, Monsieur Vitre, but I must go to the 
Princess.” 

“I wish to make the Princess my wife,” said 
Vitre, planting his arms behind him, and looking 
straight into the face of the astounded Estelle with 
his ferret-like eyes. 

“ You are mad, or you jest,” said Estelle, with 
a scornful laugh. 

“ I am not mad — I never jest. When I marry . 
the Princess I give you ten thousand francs ; I give 
you now a hundred as guarantee ; and you remain 
m the service of the Princess so long as you wish, 
and when you do not wish I still pay you the money 
and double that which she pays you now. That is 
my proposal to you. Do you understand it ? ” 

“ Yes, since you make it explicit,” said Estelle, 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 251 

“Very well?” he said, still his hands behind 
him, still his ferret eyes upon the maid. 

“ I will think it over, sleep upon it. Monsieur 
Vitre,” said Estelle seriously, for something in 
Vitre’s manner warned her that it would be unwise 
to tell him exactly what it was in her mind to say to 
his odious offer. 

“ It shall pay you well to think of it, and to 
say, ‘ Yes,’” he answered, releasing l^is clasped 
hands from the support of his wiry little frame and 
offering one of them to Estelle as if to close the 
bargain. She gave him in return two fingers, which 
he pressed to his dry lips. 

“ Good morning,” said Estelle. 

“ It is our secret, this, for the present ? Until you 
decide ? Is that so ? ” 

“Yes,” she answered, and monsieur bowed him- 
self out. 

“ The mean, foxy, vile atom of audacity ! ” Estelle 
exclaimed, as she closed the door. — “ What is the 
meaning of it ? Has he some secret power over the 
Princess ? Is he in league with the police ? I ought 
to have encouraged him to say more. Estelle, you 
must be more circumspect next time ; you must 
draw from him his plans ; he thinks he is clever, 
very wise ; but we shall see. I will pretend to be 
his dupe, his spy, his accomplice ; it will give me 
aches and pains, will set my teeth on edge, as they 
say; but I will twist the viper’s tail, I will stamp on 
him, I will make a mock of him.” 

But Estelle had no opportunity to carry out her 


252 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROEE. 


threat. The viper was too many for her. He came 
and went at intervals — the slave of the Princess. 
He rendered her many little services. He made 
excuses to see her. 

In one way and another he obtained influence in 
connection with the affairs of the Mazaroffs at Khera- 
soff . Havmg made no will, certain property fell to 
the Princess ; he constituted himself her agent. He 
secured the interest of Estelle by telling her that 
he had repented of his sudden impulse; it was 
wrung out of him, he said, his love for the Princess, 
by the exhibition of her beauty, as she paced the 
room on that eventful morning when she discovered 
that she was a free woman. 

Moreover, he told Estelle that if she did not keep 
his secret he would separate her from the Princess. 
He showed her a police-order of arrest, with a blank 
for the name ; and, moved by his threats and her 
love for the Princess, she became the silent witness 
of Monsieur Vitre’s intrigues to obtain influence 
over her mistress, and could only sigh when the 
Princess remarked that Vitre was very complaisant 
and very useful. 

Ah, that viper, whose tail was to be twisted, it 
warmed itself almost, in the glowing presence of the 
beautiful Princess ! Vitre never tired of doing her 
good offices. His aid came at a needful time. He 
brought her a large sum collected in her behalf 
from her husband’s estate. This, with letters from 
Dick, made her quite happy ; and her beauty was 
more radiant than ever. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROEF. 253 

She drove out every day, and talked of going to 
Trouville. Several of the newspapers had spoken of 
the beautiful Russian Princess, now a widow, and 
Dick’s were not the only letters that paid homage to 
her. She was a little disappointed that Dick had 
not at once proposed to make her his wife ; but 
Estelle smoothed this disappointment out with the 
argument that even though she had not loved the 
Prince and regarded his death as the striking 
away of her chains, a little time for reflection, if 
not for sorrow, must elapse before Milord Travers 
could approach her upon so delicate a subject. In 
her own heart, however, the Princess did not agree 
with Estelle in this. And she wrote, in her terse, 
characteristic fashion, reminding Dick what widow- 
hood meant to her — freedom, liberty to love and 
acknowledge it before all the world ! Freedom 
to give her hand to him who was the master of 
her heart ! 

What a tangle Travers had got his affairs into ! 
The one big lie he had considered it necessary to tell 
the Princess was like a seed which the devil might 
have sown to destroy a lovely garden. Its fecundity 
was tremendous. It choked all Dick’s good inten- 
tions. It blighted his most generous plans. It 
turned his sweetest words to gall. It grew tendrils 
that imprisoned his best efforts to be free. He had 
neither the heart nor the strength to break his bonds. 

Tremont noticed that his friend was much ab- 
sorbed, and that he did not seem as happy as he 
(Tremont) thought he should be. Of course Tre- 


254 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


mdnt put this down to Dick’s secret fear that he 
had robbed him of his love ; and he had in stray 
moments of their deepest confidence challenged Dick 
on the subject ; but only to confirm the strength of 
their friendship, which had become firmer still with 
the sacrifice that Dick seemed to feel Tremont had 
made for him. Tremont, in these friendly con- 
ferences, had said more than once that Evelyn never 
cared for him except as a friend, had said so, had 
even confessed that she would never have been in- 
duced to marry him even if he had asked her. And 
was he to quarrel with the dear girl if Nature had 
made him undesirable to her as a husband ? No ; 
what better fortune than to see her the wife of the 
best fellow in the world, his own dear friend ? Dick’s 
friend had taken up this magnanimous and sensible 
position from the first. He did not know, however, 
how near he had been to the winning of the prize 
which Dick had obtained without an effort. He 
never knew that once Evelyn had expected his pro- 
posal, and was almost prepared to accept it. He did 
not know that if he had given his love words as 
eloquent as the occasional language of his eyes the 
banns of marriage might have been put up for him 
instead of for Richard Travers. And supposing 
they had been ? And supposing Travers had come 
to visit Charlton Manor afterwards ? Well, even 
then the future might have had less gloomy shadows 
in it than those which, unseen of mortal eye, were 
rising up behind the present sunshine of Evelyn’s 
life and his. 


TBE PRIurCESS MAZAROFF. 


255 


One day in September, close upon the wedding- 
day of Travers and Evelyn, Monsieur Michel Vitre 
felt that his opportunity had come. Estelle had 
gone to visit a poor friend, who was very ill. The 
Princess was alone. She was in a generous mood. 
She listened to Vitre without impatience. He had 
placed her under many little obligations. Hitherto 
he had treated her throughout their intercourse with 
respect. He had paid madame compliments, but 
that was only natural. She knew that men ad- 
mired her. Beauty knows its power. She knew 
that when she drove in the Champs-Elysees, or when 
she left her carriage on the boulevards to make a 
purchase, that men of all grades gazed upon her ; 
and often she heard their admiring comments upon 
her figure, her eyes, her hair, her complexion. An 
occasional word or two of worship and fiattery from 
Vitre had, therefore, no particular meaning for her 
until on this memorable day in September, this dark 
day in the autumn, when he developed a new interest 
in her. They had talked of many things. He had 
ventured to tell her of his success in life. He had 
already shown her that his personal influence had 
been of great use to her in the representation of her 
financial rights at Kherasoff. She complimented 
him upon his sagacity. He spoke of his chateau 
overlooking the Bois. She did not know he had a 
house. It was a palace, he said. Then he told her 
of a large sum of money he had made recently in 
connection with a Russian railway concession and 
a mining venture which he controlled in Spain. 


256 the princess mazaroff. 

The Princess listened with courtesy to these things, 
and even expressed her agreeable surprise at Mon- 
sieur Vitre’s wealth, and when he had spoken of his 
house, she asked in a light and airy way after his 
wife and children. This was his cue for attack. 

“ Ah, madame,” he said, “ it has not been my good 
fortune to marry.” 

“ No ? ” said the Princess. 

“ I do not believe in marriage without love ; you 
yourself know what that is.” 

“Yes, truly,” she replied. 

“ But I have loved for years one woman ; she is 
adorable, lovely.” 

“ And will she not take you for her husband ? ” 

“ I have not dared to ask such a blessing.” 

“ No ? ” said the Princess. 

“ Nor could she have married me without a divorce.” 

“ In love with a married woman ? ” 

“In love, yes — madly! Oh, madame — Anissia, 
cannot you guess ? ” 

He had flung himself at her feet. She rose with 
an indignant start. 

“ Monsieur Vitre, what do you mean ? ” 

“ Mean ? — that I love you ; that I would die for 
you ; that all the money I have, the chateau — my 
God, everything — belongs to you ; and I will be your 
servant, your dog ! ” 

Vitre fairly spluttered these tempting declara- 
tions from his thin bloodless lips, and looked up at 
the Princess with an appealing expression of face 
such as some wretched mortal might put on in hell 


TSe princess Mazaroff. 257 

when the one particular fiend devoted to his torture 
was preparing the furnace. 

“ Get up, Monsieur Vitre ; you have mistaken 
your feelings for me. I am not angry. I forgive you . 
But pray forget this scene and never recur to it 
again. Leave me now, please. You have made me 
feel very miserable.” 

“ Leave you ! ” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. 
“ Leave you. Princess ! Not recur to this subject 
again ! It is the only subject that fills my life. 
What do you think has been at my elbow pricking 
me on to help you all these weeks ? What do you 
think? Gratitude? Yes — the gratitude that is 
patience : it waits, it is love. I love you, Anissia ! ” 

“ Do not call me by that name. Monsieur Vitre. 
You know, miserable wretch, do you not, that I am 
destined for another? Were that not so, let me tell 
you now, and once for ever and ever, that I could not 
marry you if you had all the wealth of all the world. 
There ! Do not provoke me ! ” 

“ Provoke you,” said Vitre, with a great effort to 
be calm, now that he realised he had staked his all 
and lost. “Destined for another, madame! For 
whom ? ” 

The Princess did not reply, but proceeded to leave 
the room. 

“ Another ? The English traveller ? That may 
not be ! Listen — listen ! ” 

He hissed his words. They seemed to scorch his 
lips. The viper was about to bite. 

The Princess paused and confronted him. 

17 




THE PBINCESS MAZAROFE. 


“ Listen ! Ah you must ! He can never be yours. 
Nor does he wish. His letters are lies. He cares 
no more for you than he does for a discarded glove.” 

“ Fiend ! ” exclaimed the woman, turning upon the 
viper and seizing it by the throat ; “ fiend, begone, 
ere I kill you ! ” 

Yitre shrank almost into his hoots. And he dared 
ask this woman to marry him ! 

He re-arranged his necktie and buttoned his coat 
as he shrank away from the enraged virago, who, 
having half choked him, flung him from her, and 
then stood before him, trembling with passion. 

“Now, tell me what you mean? What do you 
know ? ” she commanded. 

“ Mr. Richard Travers, milord of the African fame, 
is to be married.” 

“Yes, I know it,” she answered. 

“ You know it ! ” exclaimed Yitre, still gasping for 
the breath that had been shaken out of him. 

“ I know it,” she repeated, “ and you knew it when 
you dared propose to usurp his place?’ 

“ I usurp his place ! ” 

“ You ! ” 

“ But I do not desire it ! I do not love the woman 
he is going to marry.” 

“ I am calm,” said the Princess ; “ tell me what is 
in your mmd, lies or truth. What have you to say 
^of Mr. Travers?” 

“ That he was engaged to be married to an English 
lady when he visited you last ; that he is not going 
to Africa ; that before this month is out a certain 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 269 

Mademoiselle Somers will be his wife,” said Vitre, 
standing away from the Princess and firing each 
sentence at her as if they were bullets from a pistol. 

A brave man, after all, this crumpled- up little 
Frenchman, smarting under the humiliation of the 
Princess’s assault. 

“ Is this true ? ” she asked, sinking into a chair, 
“ or is it your revenge ? ” 

“ It is true ! ” 

“ How do you know it ? ” 

“ He told me.” 

“ When ? ” 

“ When he gave me the message I brought you.” 
“ And you did not tell me — why ? ” 

“ He made me promise I would not tell you.” 

“ Made you promise ! ” 

“Yes, and paid me.” 

“ Paid you ! ” 

“ With a hundred pounds in the Bank of England 
notes. See, I have kept them ! ” 

He thrust his hands into his pockets and drew 
out a bundle of notes. 

“ It is true — I swear it ! Do you not see that 
ever since that day I have tried to prepare you for 
the disappomtment ? Ah, mon Dieu, I would be 
true to you ; no insipid English miss for me ! ” 

“ Hush,” she said, between her white teeth, “ s-sh ; 
I would be calm. Do not raise the devil that is in 
me. You are driving me mad. I am resisting the 
poison of your words. S-sh ! Heaven help me to 
be calm.” 


260 THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 

Vitre watched her, with his lips apart. His waxed 
moustaches were limp ; great beads of perspiration 
stood upon his narrow forehead. 

“ This is true that you tell me ? ” said the Princess, 
in an enquiring tone, but quickly adding, with 
flashing eyes, “ If it is a lie, beware ! If it is true, 
then ” 

“ I swear it ! ” he said, interrupting her ; “ I call 
all the saints to witness ! ” 

“ Then you will take me over there ? ” 

“ I ! Where, madame ? ” 

“ To England ! ” 

“ I travel with you ? ” 

“ Yes. Where is Estelle ? When can you be 
ready ? ” 

“ I said I was your slave. Give me your orders.” 

“ Where is this marriage to take place ? ” 

“ At a village— they call it Charlton- Glee ve ; it is 
in the middle of England.” 

“ Very well. We will go ; you shall show me the 
way.” 

“ Yes. When, Princess ? ” 

“ Now — at once.” 

“ And if it is as I say it is — you will — pardon me 
—you may, perhaps, be kind to a humbler but a 
truer suitor, madame ? ” 

“ Listen, Yitre, I do not love you. At this moment 
I hate you ; but when the marriage is solemnised 
that you tell of, then you may speak to me again.” 

“Oh, mon Dieu ! Thank you. Princess; thank 
you, Anissia. I will go and prepare me now, I will 


THE PEINCESS MAZAROFF. 261 

come back and give you the time of the trains. I 
kiss your hand.” 

But he did not. The Princess withdrew it, and 
by a motion of her head intimated that he had better 
be gone. The next moment he was gone ; but as he 
picked his way downstairs and out into the place, he 
chuckled and hugged himself as if he had won a 
victory. 

“ Yes, yes,” he said to himself, “she will relent. 
I have money, I will show her the chateau on the 
Bois. Estelle shall help me. Yes, and when it is 
all over — then. Monsieur, Vitre, you can have your 
revenge. Even the woman you fove does not try to 
strangle you for nothing. No, Monsieur Yitre, you 
know how to make affairs even. But, mon Dieu, how 
lovely she is ! What white teeth ! what fair hands ! 
what eyes ! what a mouth ! what a figure ! Ah, 
Michel Yitre, you have a prize worth working for, 
worth lying for, worth paying for ! ” 

Estelle returned, to find her mistress sitting by 
the window, pale as a ghost, and almost speechless. 

“ I was looking for you,” she said slowly, and the 
next moment she fell sobbing into her arms. 


262 


TUE PlUECEtiiS MAZAROFF, 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“THE DAY BEFOKE THE’ WEDDING.” 

“ There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.” 

Old Proverb. 

“ They are a wonderful people, the rooks up aloft in their 
oaks and elms; they know Sunday, and will almost trust a 
gunner on that holy day; they have a large sense of wonder 
which comes from their unity of purpose, a sort of collective or 
corporate intelligence; they are sensitive to the coming of 
strangers, very wise in protecting themselves from danger when 
feeding in the open fields ; and sage old villagers credit them 
with an occult knowledge of untoward events .” — The Natu- 
ralist. 

It was the day before the wedding — September the 
twenty -fourth. Charlton- Cleeve was not likely to 
forget the date. It became of more serious import 
in their calendars than the twenty-fifth that had 
been so long looked for. The day before! Mrs. 
Somers was full of business. But there was no 
hurry in her working. She was calm and self- 
possessed. Xothing was left undone to make the 
wedding-day all that it should be. The dining-room 
had been cleared for the breakfast. Every available 
corner of it had been utilised. The wedding presents 
were already arranged in the morning-room, which 
looked like a grand bazaar. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


263 


Many visitors had already arrived. The “ Green 
Man ” and the humbler hostelry on the outskirts 
of Charlton- Cleeve were full of guests. Several 
residents of the village had invited friends to stay 
with them. There was not a family uninterested, 
or uninvited to join in the festivities. After the 
wedding breakfast at Cleeve House, the school chil- 
dren were to be feasted under a great tent on the 
lawn ; and at night there was to be a grand ball to 
which many guests were invited. At the same time 
the old people of the village were to be fed in their 
own homes. Plentiful distribution of provisions 
had been made among the poor. 

On this day, prior to these arrangements, Charl- 
ton- Cleeve was moved by a delightful expectancy 
of junketing and merry-making. 

The bride and bridegroom were to spend the 
honeymoon at The Old Hall. Sir Gordoi^ Travers 
had insisted upon making the estate a wedding 
present to his son Dick, and had betaken himself 
to a fine old house where he had spent most of his 
life as a boy, near Middlesborough. So he was now 
Sir Richard Gordon Travers, of The Cedars, near 
Middlesborough, and his son was Richard Travers, 
Esquire, of The Old Hall, near York. Sir Gordon 
felt that this arrangement would settle Dick so 
firmly that there could be no more idea of travelling. 
Moreover, the management and maintenance of the 
estate had become too much trouble for the old man, 
Avho had increased his responsibilities in Middles- 
borough, and in various other directions of which at 


264 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


present Dick knew nothing. Few people had any 
notion of the wealth of Sir Gordon. Everything he 
had touched of late years had turned to gold ; and 
when Dick was overcome at the noble gift of The 
Old Hall, he said, “ My lad, it’s nothing — a mere 
flea-bite! Wait a bit; I’ll show you. I have been 
keeping things back until you were ready to settle 
down and take stock.” 

Dick and his father were staying at Charlton 
Manor for the wedding. Gerty was at Cleeve House, 
the home of the prospective bride. And what a 
happy prospective bride she was ! She wept in 
Gerty’s arms with joy, as they talked of their lovers. 
Evelyn for the time had laid aside all her scholar- 
ship; she mentioned neither Shelley, Keats, Ibsen, 
Schopenhauer, nor Spencer, nor the question of 
woman’s rights, nor anything that even sounded 
learned. She discussed all manner of feminine 
things with Gerty, who told her that she ought to 
have been married to Selby Howarth that year ; but 
it had been postponed for six months. Her father 
was not quite satisfied with Selby’s position. He 
was going to be a banker. It was, she believed, her 
father’s bank. They did not call it his, but he 
was the principal man in it, she understood. It 
was called the County Bank, at York, and Selby 
was something in the bank, but he was to be some- 
thing better in six months. Selby’s parents were 
well off ; they had a great house and grounds, and 
hunted and had flne shooting, and Mrs. Howarth 
always went to London in the season. In return 


THE PRINCESS MAZAUOFF. 265 

for this information, Evelyn mentioned to Gerty 
various little ambitions which she entertained in 
connection with the schools, and confessed to a cer- 
tain nervousness at the idea of having to take charge 
of such an establishment as The Old Hall ; but how, 
she said, love enabled a woman to do anything, and 
be anything ! and then she kissed Gerty, and wept 
tears of joy. 

Mr. and Mrs. Wykeham were also guests at Cleeve 
House. Mr. Somers was too much occupied to make 
jokes at the expense of his sister. Moreover, he 
thought Ted Wykeham a good match, and he con- 
fessed that his sister looked ten years younger since 
she had again changed her name. 

At the same time he could not refrain from remind- 
ing her of her declaration of continued widowed 
blessedness. “ No, I shall never marry again,” he 
said, laughing, but only to add, “Ah, well! you are 
all alike, you women. When you are girls, you are 
never going to marry ; when you are widows, you 
are never going to marry again. Ah, well, it is all 
right ; what should we do without you ? ” 

They had gone down to Worcestershire from their 
house on the Thames this happy couple, Mr. and 
Mrs. Wykehem. On their way they had spent a few 
days in the Adelphi Chambers, and had been present 
at the early opening of one or two theatres, the 
managers of which hoped to catch the first returning 
vacationists, and at the same time find audiences 
among the autumn visitors to the. metropolis. Mrs. 
Wykeham declared it was quite interesting to be in 


266 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


London out of the season. One saw the town in such 
a different light ; it was so much quieter ; there were 
such a different class of people about, and so on. 
Ted gloried in London at any time of the year. The 
only place to live in, he said, whether it was wet or 
dry, or hot or cold, or foggy or anything else. But he 
confessed that to make it perfect a fellow needed the 
companionship of a sympathetic and clever wife, a 
woman who knew the world, and could be a chum ; 
and that was his Loo “ to a moral.” There was no 
end to the masculine compliments Ted lavished upon 
his wife, who was as lively and as merry as any 
good-natured little woman could be. They travelled 
down to Chari ton-Cleeve by the Great Western, and 
many of the officials went out of their way to be 
especially attentive to them. The country was in 
its most seductive dress. The first tints of autumn 
were upon the landscape. The harvesters were in 
the yellow and golden fields. It had been a fine 
season. The crops were heavy. Everybody seemed 
happy. The gardens of the London fiorists about 
Windsor were a blaze of colour. Boating men and 
boating ladies in their gay costumes were coming 
and going at many of the stations as far as Reading. 
Tourists with their baggage were changing trains at 
Oxford. Sportsmen in shooting jackets and leggings, 
with dogs and guns, were also passengers here and 
there. The twin stations of Malvern and the Link 
were bright with fiowers, and their bookstalls showy 
with new books. Worcester had a quite holiday 
appearance. The Malvern Hills seemed to move 


TBE PRINCESS 3IAZAR0FF. 


267 


about in the changing landscape, making back- 
grounds for picturesque villages ; and all the land 
was sweet and soft and pastoral. Charlton- Cleeve 
had never, in the eyes of Ted and his wife, looked 
so pretty and so peaceful. 

The Rector was in high spirits. He had 
thoroughly worked himself up into the magnani- 
mous position of the bridegroom’s best man, and 
the friend of everybody concerned. The wound in 
his heart where his love was buried had healed, or 
he professed to think so. He had given his feelings 
a new impulse. He was Evelyn’s friend as well as 
Ted’s, and of late he had made quite a study among 
his library companions of cases of self-sacrifice, 
secret self-sacrifice, m which men and women had 
given up their lives for others, and he was, he 
thought, coming to the conclusion that friendship 
was a nobler thing than love. It had been noticed 
in the village of late that the Rector had taken a 
more lively interest than heretofore in what were 
called church affairs ; had interested himself anew 
in many village matters that had only attracted 
him for a short time when first he took over the 
living. It had at the same time been observed by 
a few sticklers for orthodoxy and severe Protes- 
tantism that he had visited Father Dupont at the 
monastery just outside the village, and that Father 
Dupont had been seen at the Rectory. It was 
known that Father Dupont was a Jesuit, because 
he had been in journalistic controversy with the 
editor of the county paper ; he was famous for his 


268 TBE PElNCESS MAZABOFR 

learning and knowledge of books ; and the friends 
of the Rector at Charlton-Cleeve offered this fact in 
defence of Tremont, who, whatever he might do, 
would be always beloved by many ; and who, what- 
ever he might do, would never have the love or 
respect of those who placed orthodoxy and the pure 
Protestant faith above everything else — and there 
were many such in Charlton-Cleeve and the sur- 
rounding parishes. 

The Somerses had not invited Tremont to officiate 
at the ceremony ; and, moreover, he had allowed it 
to be understood that he should prefer simply to be 
Dick’s best man. The bishop of the diocese was to 
assist the Rev. Jabez Ogden to read the wedding 
service. Dick was a trifle below the weather, 
Tremont thought ; but Sir Gordon said it was an 
anxious time, and he remembered himself that he 
felt queer all the week before he was married, and 
had to fortify himself a little ; he thought an extra 
glass of champagne was what Dick required. “ A 
man feels such a fool with everybody congratulat- 
ing him and so much fuss ; bridesmaids and furbe- 
lows, and the girl he is going to marry fluttered a 
good deal, and the mother with tears in her eyes,” 
said Sir Gordon. “ I tell you, a man feels as if he 
were committing a robbery, or worse, taking a girl 
away from her home and leaving her father and 
mother desolate. Ah, well ; it’s the way of the 
world ; it’s got to be done.” Tremont said, Y es, he 
supposed so ; and they both did their best to arouse 
Dick, who seemed sadder than he ought to be. 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. ^69 

The rooks up in the tall elms that shadowed the 
entrance to the Rectory were unusually talkative 
on this day before the wedding. They seemed to 
know all about it. If they had indeed known 
exactly what was going to transpire they could not 
have been more excited. They had reared their 
young early in the season. Their sons and daughters 
were now old enough to be taken into parental 
confidence ; such of the young, let us say, as had 
been spared the necessary slaughter of the innocents 
that went on every year with the aid of the game- 
keeper’s gun — a thinning of the feathery population 
regarded as a merry sport in the country. Tremont, 
however, cared no more for this annual feast of the 
gun than he did for the rook-pie, for which bis cook 
was celebrated right through the half-dozen villages 
that surrounded Chari ton- Cleeve. 

Sir Gordon, noticing the fuss that was going on in 
the rookery, entertained Tremont, Dick, and Wyke- 
ham at luncheon with many wonderful stories of the 
sagacity of these knowing birds. Wykeham had 
walked over from Cleeve House to lunch ; and as we 
have already stated, Dick and his father were the 
guests of their friend Tremont. W ykeham sustained 
the badinage of Sir Gordon with a quiet feeling of en- 
joyment. He rather liked to be told that he was a 
sly dog. In return he treated Sir Gordon to some 
examples of repartee, and Sir Gordon declared that it 
was a pleasure to meet a young fellow with such an 
old head upon his shoulders as that with which 
Wykeham was provided. 


270 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Your father must be a man of rare capacity,” 
said Sir Gordon. 

“Judging from my own capacity — for various 
occupations, not forgetting the lightest and easiest,” 
Wykeham replied, with his customary little stammer 
— “ well, my father knew a hawk from a hernshaw, 
as Hamlet says in the play ; but this is the age of the 
young men. Sir Gordon. We mherit the wisdom of 
the centuries, and know how to utilise it.” 

“ That is a pretty piece of conceit, anyway,” said 
Sir Gordon, smiling. 

“ I think so, too,” Wykeham replied. “ I read it in 
a newspaper — coming down from Paddington, and 
thought it a good sentence to get off on — somebody, 
as an American friend of mme would say.” 

“Well, Mr. Wykeham, you might have selected 
some young fellow to get it off on,” Sir Gordon 
replied, “ for, let me tell you that a youpg man may 
be ever so clever, but without experience he is a 
fool, sir — a fool ! ” 

“ I quite agree with you, Sir Gordon, but — there 
are some young fellows who never get experience, or 
who — never know what to do witti it when they 
have got it.” 

“ Mr. Wykeham, you are what they call in my part 
of the world a bit of a trimmer. I thought you 
said this was the age of the young men.” 

“ I meant the clever young men,” said Wykeham, 
smiling in his turn. 

“ Well, I don’t know where they are. I know we 
have Salisbury, and Gladstone, and Tennyson, and 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


271 


Bismarck and half a dozen ocher great men of our 
time, and I don’t think they are very young. On 
the other hand, there is Churchill. If he is an ex- 
ample on your side — well, sir, you are welcome to 
him.” 

“ Ah, now you are becoming political,” said the 
Rector, who had been dividmg his attention between 
some whispered remarks of Travers, who sat by him 
at the other end of the table and the efforts of 
Wykeham to amuse Sir Gordon. 

“Well, my dear Tremont, what is there that is 
not political ? I don’t see how you are going to get 
away from politics ; they move the world. I don’t 
know any other subject that gives you much material 
for a chat, unless it be the price and working of 
iron, or the management of an estate in which your 
expenses are bound to keep ahead of your rents and 
the returns you get for your crops and your stock in 
the market.” 

“ My father has a very practical mind, Mr. Wyke- 
ham,” said Dick, “and he is right, I fear, in his 
views of the young men. None of us work as our 
fathers worked ; and the worst of it is, I suppose, 
we are inclined to think it is not necessary.” 

“ You mean,” said Wykeham, “the old birds have 
feathered the nest, and why should we bother?” 

“ Just so,” said Dick. 

And so the careless kill-time chat went on, chiefly, 
however, confined to Sir Gordon and Wykeham; 
the Rector and Dick withdrawing into a con- 
versation of their, own which was mostly devoted 


272 the PRINCEfiS MAZABOFF. 

to questions affecting the arrangements of the 
morrow. 

Meanwhile, the rooks up in the elms gossiped and 
screamed, and flew about, making airy circles, or 
swinging on tender branches like feathery athletes. 
They had given themselves no rest from early morn- 
ing. It was strange that they should keep up their 
active councils right into the afternoon. But they 
did. If they had been holding a council of war, 
they could not have appeared to be more controver- 
sial. They sent scouts out into the country, in 
single spies and in battalions, skirmishmg parties 
and solitary sentinels ; and these came back with 
•strange noisy messages. Then they all appeared to 
settle down again into solemn and general confabula- 
tion. 

Probably the rooks were simply concerned about 
the unusual stir in the village. This might have been 
all ; or it might have been that some strange occult 
knowledge had been vouschafed to them. Anyhow, 
they are a weird, mysterious kind of bird. Of 
course, there was a great deal going on below them 
in Charlton-Cleeve that was very unusual. Their 
curiosity might well have been piqued on this ac- 
count. The village was full of people, or it seemed 
to be. The villagers themselves were more or less 
in the one long, picturesque street where they had 
seen that coach of the Traverses come swinging into 
the place for the flrst time in the early summer, to 
at length become a famihar vehicle both to villagers 
and rooks. But on this twenty-fourth of September 


THJS PniNCiJSS MAZAROFF, 


m 


the entire aspect of Charlton-Cleeve was changed. 
The villagers were putting up flags ; one or two 
gorgeous banners were actually flying among the 
lower trees near Cleeve House. There was a tent 
on the lawn, and another in the Rectory meadows ; 
not the ordinary tents of the archery meetings, but 
much larger, and with gayer flags. While they 
were discussing what it all might mean, or compar- 
ing notes about what they knew it really did mean, 
a flagstag was thrust out from the “ crow-hole ” in 
the church steeple ; at the end of it was a great 
coloured ball that presently unfurled itself and be- 
came a bright, fluttering streamer. It was all very 
gay and full of pleasant breeze, the entire village 
and the surrounding country. A gentle, toying 
wind was abroad. It swayed the branches of the 
elms in a quiet, playful fashion, and was just suffi- 
cient to flutter the bunting in the village street, and 
temper the heat of the day, drying the corn, and 
rustling the reeds by the river. 

While Wykeham was walking back to Cleeve 
House, and Sir Gordon was lying down on a couch 
in his bedroom thinkmg of many things and very 
happy ; while Tremont was pondering over a book 
in a favourite corner beneath the yew-tree by the 
oriel window that lighted the northern end of the 
library ; while Dick was sitting smoking in the 
great hall, each enjoying the independence of the 
time between luncheon and dinner that is so delight- 
ful in a country-house — there was an unsual stir at 
the “ Green Man.” Besides its wedding guests, 
18 


274 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


three persons had arrived by the morning train — 
that same curious stranger whom they had seen 
before, Monsieur Vitr4, a very handsome, red-haired 
lady, with a very foreign accent, and a thin little 
woman of the spinster sort, who was also evidently 
a foreigner. They were simply passing through 
Charlton- Cleeve, they said, and would require rooms 
for that day only; which was rather a fortunate 
circumstance, the landlady remarked, seeing that it 
was just then a very busy time for the “ Green 
Man.” They ordered a bottle of champagne and 
some dry biscuits, the only refreshment they re- 
quired until later, though they had evidently travelled 
a long way. The gentleman requested that a car- 
riage should be ready in half an hour. He was 
particular about its being a close carriage. The two 
ladies went to their rooms ; and In half an hour the 
handsome woman with the red hair and the wonder- 
ful eyes — the landlady had no feeling for shades of 
colour, so she called the red-gold hair red, and the 
violet eyes dark blue — came down, attended by the 
little old-maidish one and the gentleman ; and the 
two drove off, saying they would not be long away, 
and telling the coachman to drive towards the old 
church and they would direct him later. The short 
lady, whom she concluded to be the other’s maid, 
returned to her room. This was the landlady’s 
record of the carriage and its two occupants that 
began rolling along towards the Rectory, while the 
Rector, Sir Gordon, and Dick were engaged, as we 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 275 

have said, enjoying the siesta that is so pleasant 
after luncheon in a country-house. 

The watchful rooks saw the carriage coming to- 
wards the Rectory, and when it pulled up at the 
entrance in the shadow of their ancestral home, in 
the ancient trees, they made a good deal of extra 
fuss, fairly screaming when the door opened, and 
the occupants of the carriage alighted and entered 
the Rectory. Almost immediately afterwards the 
gentleman. Monsieur Michel Vitro, came out of the 
house and re-entered the carriage, without, however, 
the coachman once touching up his horses to move 
on. The driver simply continued to sit on his box, 
and he sat as immovable and as steady as a trooper 
in the stone sentry-box at the Horse Guards. The 
rooks cawed and screeched, and some of them flew 
down about his head. He looked up at them, and 
then they seemed to be making a series of angry 
remarks to him, but he heeded them not. Perhaps 
rooks really have some inexplicable foresight in regard 
to tragic events ; everybody to-day at Charlton-Cleeve 
believes they have. 

Tacitus was the favourite author that Tremont 
was reading in his corner beneath the whispering 
pines while the shadow of Monsieur Yitre was be- 
ginning to fall darkly upon the Rectory, and the 
rooks were alive with their great business, what- 
ever it might be. It was a curious coincidence that 
the Rector was turning over the leaves devoted to 
the last hours of Otho. On the day of the Battle of 
Bedriacum a bird of unusual appearance was observed 


276 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


to perch in a grove near Regium Lepidum, and, 
notwithstanding the great concourse of people and 
a numerous flight of other birds, never to move 
from its place until after Otho had put an end to 
his life. 

Those were the classic days of superstition, when 
Roman statesmen and warriors regulated their 
affairs with the aid of oracles, and took careful note 
of omens ; but modern history supplies many sin- 
gular examples of what are regarded as the preter- 
natural incidents of the very earliest times. A year 
or two after the great Are at Chicago there still 
stood a pretty wooden villa where the flames had 
parted like a river that divides and goes round 
a hillock and makes an island of it. The day be- 
fore the Are a strange red bird fluttered about the 
grounds of the villa and was the subject of curious 
comment and inquiry. It was not seen afterwards, 
but the parting of the flames at this point, leaving 
the villa untouched, was a notable event, being coin- 
cident with the appearance of the strange red bird. 
The Rector found his thoughts drifting away from 
Tacitus into speculations upon the many strange and 
curious stories concerning birds, the superstitions 
about “ bad ” birds that Dick had mentioned, the 
recognition by all nations of the wisdom of the owl, 
the pretty tradition of the redbreast ; and all the 
time the occupants of his own famous rookery were 
making history for the naturalist. 


THE PBINCESS MAZAEOFF. 


277 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

TRAGEDY. 

“’Twas hate inspired the subtle vengeance, the hate that’s 
bom of love.” — Baldwin. 

“ Despair grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, 
and revenges its misfortunes on its own head. It refuses to live 
under disappointments and crosses, and chooses rather not to 
be at all than to be without the thing which it hath once im- 
agined necessary to its happiness.” — Charron. 

ViTRE had first entered the hall-room, properly an- 
nounced. John, the doorkeeper, remembered that 
he had some weeks previously had an interview 
with Mr. Travers, and that they seemed to he on very 
good terms. The lady remained in the outer hall. 
She said she would prefer to wait until her friend 
had spoken with Mr. Travers. She did not wish to 
be announced. The gentleman would come to her 
when he had conferred with the Rector’s guest. The 
servant withdrew. Anissia sat down upon an old 
oak seat, above which were sundry decorations con- 
nected with the chase, and one or two African spears 
which had been given to the Rector by Travers. 
The room was lighted by a triple lancet window, 
glazed with a dull glass. One or two of the panes 


278 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


were open, letting in the sun and air and the noisy 
cawing of the rooks. The Princess, drawing her 
soft silk cloak about her so as effectually to hide the 
white dress beneath, looked round at the unaccus- 
tomed scene and sighed. At some tender thought 
or passing trouble the tears came into her eyes, and 
she wiped them away in a sad, resigned manner, 
as one might who had accepted disappointment and 
wrong, and could only weep over it. Thrusting her 
handkerchief back into her white bosom, however, a 
change came over her face, a sweep of passion which 
tightened the lips, and for a moment brought a red 
glow into the cheeks. 

Travers was sitting in the bay window looking out 
over the meadows and away to the Breddon Hills. 
But he saw neither hills nor meadows. His thoughts 
were far away. They were occupied in wondering 
what the Princess would do when she learnt of his 
marriage, as he feared she must. He was regret- 
ting, in a vague kind of way, his want of courage in 
omitting to confide the story of his stay in Paris to 
some one, and over and over again it was borne in 
upon him that he owed it to Evelyn to have ac- 
quainted her father with his trouble. From these 
unhappy refiections his mind gradually drifted into a 
happier phase. The image of Evelyn rose up before 
him. He saw her on that first day of their meeting 
in Paris ; he recalled their coming together in that 
very room when least he expected to see her again ; 
he heard her sweet, encouraging words of love among 
the roses of Cleeve House ; and then suddenly he 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


279 


came back to the Princess Mazaroff with a resolu- 
tion of what he thought was self-sacrifice, which 
meant a resolve to do everything in his power, con- 
sistent with love and duty towards his wife, to make 
her life pleasant ; but how he was gomg to do this 
was a question that did not assume any practical 
shape. 

“ A gentleman to see you, sir,” said the doorkeeper, 
ushering in Vitre, who had followed John without 
his knowledge, and was by his side in the room when 
John thought he was on the other side of the door. 

“ Who is it, John ? ” Travers asked, not seeing 
that the visitor had followed close upon John’s 
heels. 

“ Monsieur Vitre,” said the visitor himself. 

“Oh, yes; very well,” said Travers, rising. 
“ Quite right to show the gentleman in, John.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” said the servant, withdrawing. 

“ How do you do ? ” said Travers, putting out his 
hand with anything but cordiality. “ What brings 
you here ? ” 

Dick felt a cold chill at his heart as he asked the 
question. 

“ I come with Madame the Princess,” said Vitre, 
coldly. 

“ With Madame the Princess ! ” exclaimed Dick. 
“ Good God, what for ? ” 

“ She had a desire to see you.” 

“ With what object?” 

“ She did not inform me.” 

“ But do you not know ? ” 


280 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

“ I ask no questions. ‘ Take me to Monsieur 
Travers,’ she say. I bring her.” 

“ Then you did not respect my confidence ? ” 

“Relating to what I learnt when I visit you last ? 
— oh, yes.” 

“ But she has learnt why I am here ? ” 

“ I do not know what she has learnt.” 

“ In heaven’s name, where is she ? ” asked Dick, 
fiinging his cigar into the fireplace, and pulling 
nervously at his coat collar. 

“ She is here,” said Vitre, opening the door to the 
Princess, and leaving the room as she entered. 

“ Mr. Travers does not wish to be disturbed until 
he rings,” said Vitre to the servant who let him out 
at the front door. 

He had arranged this with the Princess, who, as 
she stood within the door of the great hall, undid the 
fastening of a black silk cloak as she had undone 
the fastenings of her sable wrapper in the winter at 
the Place Vendome. And somehow, as if falling 
into the trick of the situation, Dick said, “ Will you 
not sit down ? ” at the same time placing a chair for 
her, his hands icy cold, his voice thick with anxiety, 
as he seemed to see the scandal of his life begin to 
unroll under the eyes of his beloved Evelyn. 

The Princess seated herself, and the cloak slipped 
down to her feet in a black cloud, from which she 
seemed to rise white and angry. She wore a gown 
of white soft silk and lace, and there was at her 
white throat the same great diamond which he re- 
membered. Her dress was cut low as it might have 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


281 


been for the ball had she been invited to be present 
at Cleeve House on the following night, one of the 
wedding guests. She wore soft, grey suede gloves 
reaching above her elbow; it was a strange, if 
beautiful, dress to wear for a morning call. 

“ What is it you want. Princess ? ” Dick asked, 
after a pause, during which the steady click of the 
clock high up above the mantel could be heard ; 
and for a moment it seemed as if it was the beating 
of his own heart. 

“ My husband is no more ! I am here that you 
may fulfil your word,” she said, in cold, clear accents. 

“ What word ? ” said Dick, as gently as possible ; 
he feared lest he might be overheard. 

“ The word of an English gentleman,” she said ; 
“ the word of love and hope, the word my lover 
spoke to me,” she answered. 

“ I do not know what to say to you, Anissia,” he 
replied, in a tone of regret and anguish that went 
straight to her heart, cold as she thought it was. 

Oh, mon Dieu ! ” she exclaimed. “ Say you love 
me, say you will come with me, say this wedding 
there is to be on the morrow shall be dedicate to me 
and to my love — say that, and save me from mad- 
ness, from death ! ” 

She put out her arms appealingly to him ; but 
there was no response. His did not open to her as 
for a moment she thought they might ; for was she 
not beautiful ? and did she not beg, and had he not 
folded her there so often, oh, so often ? 

“ My dear Anissia, that is impossible,” he replied. 


282 THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 

and the tone of his voice changed ; it was only as it 
seemed for a moment that it trembled with remorse. 

“Impossible!” she repeated. “Yet you regret, 
you are sorry ; you were this moment, your voice 
had the music of Paris in it ; but now you say it is 
impossible ! ” 

“ I say it is impossible,” he said, planting his feet 
firmly upon the polished fioor, and calling up his 
courage and his firmness to face the scandal right 
there, and have the entire village called in if neces- 
sary. He had done wrong. The punishment had 
come. He would meet it. 

“ And I say, mon ami, that it is impossible you 
shall marry that English lady to-morrow ! ” said the 
Princess, with an equal firmness. 

“ Don’t be unreasonable,” Dick said. “ I know I 
have done wrong ; you cannot paint me in colours 
too black ; but she is innocent — she is not to blame.” 

“ She is not to blame ! Oh, indeed ! And am I 
to blame ? Who has the first claim to your love ? ” 

“ It is no use to argue about your wrongs, Anissia. 
Whatever I can do by way of recompense, even of 
humiliation, I am ready to do.” 

“ There is only one recompense — it is that you 
make me your wife.” 

“ Be reasonable ! ” said Dick. 

“Beasonable ! Like you? As reasonable as the 
great Enghsh gentleman whose word is a bond not 
to be broken ? And you think me only what you 
call a light-of-love, that you may lie to — a forlorn, 
that you send her message back with a bribe to be 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


.m 


secret of your infamy. Ah, mon Dieu, and I thought 
you a hero, an angel,” said the Princess, with a 
tremor in her voice she could not control. 

“ You should not have employed such a messenger,” 
said Dick, a little beside himself, and not knowing 
how to answer the woman who faced him with one 
of the meanest acts of his life. 

“ Oh, yes, he was surely good enough to send to 
you,” the Princess replied ; “ base enough to send to 
a liar ; cruel enough for a messenger to one still more 
cruel than himself. Oh, my God, that I should have 
lived to see this day ! Listen, I make you a last 
demand. There is a carriage at the door ; come 
with me ! ” 

She waited. He did not reply. She advanced a 
step or two towards him. 

“ Or give me your word that to morrow it shall 
be I, the Princess Mazaroif, that stand by your side 
at the altar.” 

“ My dear Princess, you are mad to think I can 
do either of these things.” 

“ You cannot ! I am to be thrown aside — a worn 
glove, a thing that has been used, a flower that has 
been worn for a night ; without a friend, a creature 
to be pointed at, discarded, while to-morrow you give 
your love, your name, your honour, to another ! Ah, 
could you not have killed me first ! That would 
have been loving, that would have been manful, kind 
— I had blessed you as I died for such a mercy. 
Listen ; do not interrupt me ! ” 

He had moved impatiently. 


284 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“ I told you there was a passion stronger than love 
— it is hate ! And I hate you with all my broken 
heart and soul, with all my woman’s shame, with 
all my love and happiness, with all my misery. Oh, 
my God ! Do not come near me ! ” 

He had moved towards her. He feared her voice 
would be heard. She had raised it. The sound of 
it began to ring through the place. 

“ Stand back ! And you despise the man Vitre ; 
he, who is a thief, a liar, a spy, a pander, anything, 
everything that is bad and wicked. You ! you, who 
steal me from my husband ! You, who say on the 
ship, ‘ I love you, I envy him ; come to me when you 
need protection.’ You, who say these things, who 
take me to your arms, who swear by the gods, 
by your honour, to be good to me; you, whom I 
loved with all my soul, for whom I would have 
crawled in the gutter ; you, to despise this Vitre, the 
creature of any man who will pay him to spy, and 
cringe, and lie, and cut a man’s throat — ah, you ! 
Yet he is a saint compared with you. Do not touch 
me ! ” 

Suddenly she drew from her bosom the unsheathed 
hunter’s knife he had given her in^Paris. She was 
very pale, her lips were parted, her bosom was 
agitated. 

“ Stand back ! ” she exclaimed, as she held the 
weapon aloft, “stand back! You have done with 
me ! Your seared and poisoned word has gone to 
another ! I despise myself that I could have given 
heart and soul to one so base, so mean, so hateful. 


TBE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 286 

SO devilish wicked ! Well, then, we part — let it be 
so!” 

With her last word her uplifted arm fell with a 
thud upon her bosom, as she drove the knife into 
her white flesh that in a moment was red with blood. 

“ Help ! help 1 ” cried Travers, flinging open the 
door, and then rushing to support her ; but with a 
supreme efl'ort she turned from him, and staggered 
to the wall. 

The man who had let Vitre out came running into 
the room, as did one of the women- servants and the 
butler, who happened to be passing by on his way to 
the cellar. 

The servants, stunned with surprise, paused, 
dumbly asking for some explanation of the terrible 
scene. The Princess raised her arm feebly, turned 
her dying eyes towards Travers, but flxed her last 
look upon the servants. 

“ He broke my heart,” she said, in slow, measured 
words. “I stood between him and his new love” 
(here she seemed to gather herself together for a 
last effort, as the blood reddened her lips) “ and he 
has killed me ! ” 

“ By God, it is true ! ” exclaimed Travers, his heart 
wrung with anguish at the dying woman’s sufferings 
— so beautiful, so young, so likely of life and love. 

The next moment she had collapsed in a heap upon 
the floor. 


286 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFE, 


CHAPTER XIX. 

A PEISONER. 

“ Every lie, great or small, is the brink of a precipice, the 
depth of which nothing but Omniscience can fathom.” 

Charles Reade. 

“ For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because 
our days upon earth are a shadow.” — Job. 

“ The eternal surge 

Of time and tide roll on, and bears afar 
Our bubbles ; as the old burst, new emerge 
Lash’d from the foam of ages.” 

Byron. 

The Rector, hearing strange cries, closed the page 
at the death of Otho as he rose to find out what 
had happened. He hurried into the hall- room. 
The suicide had just fallen to the ground. One of 
his servants was leaning over her. The others 
were looking on aghast. Travers had fiung himself 
into a chair, his face in his hands. 

“What is it?” exclaimed the Rector, looking 
from one to the other. 

Nobody answered. 

“ Who is this poor soul ? ” he asked, starting 
hack as the servant raised up the head of the dead 
woman. 


TBE PitINCESS MAZAPOFF. 287 

There was no reply. 

« Dick, what has happened ? ” 

Travers groaned. 

“ Fetch a doctor,” said the Rector to the butler, 
who crept out of the room glad to get away. 

As he went Vitre came in. 

“ Mon Dieu ! ” he exclaimed as he glanced at the 
Princess, “ great Heaven ! — dead ! Who has done 
this ? Oh, my Princess, oh, my love ! — Heavens, 
dead ! ” 

He stooped as if he would raise the body ; then, 
suddenly turning towards Travers, he exclaimed, 
“ Ah ! you have killed her ! It is murder ! ” 

Let us explain at once that Vitre knew nothing 
of the Princess’s design, whatever it might have 
been, when she entered the Rectory. He had done 
her bidding. She had commanded him as if he 
were her veriest mercenary slave, and he had obeyed 
her. “ When I enter the room,” she had said, “ you 
leave it. Ask no questions; only tell them Mr. 
Travers desire not to be disturbed until he summon 
the servant.” 

It is also desirable to state that the Princess had 
encouraged herself to hope that Travers might 
make some compromise ; if not so direct and severe 
a one as that she had demanded, at least one that it 
might have been possible for her to accept — what, 
she could not think. At the same time she had 
fully resolved what she would do in the event of 
his conduct being such as Vitre had described it. 
The memory of the vengeance of the woman of 


288 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


Kherasoff, which she had quoted to Estelle, had 
not been without its influence in regard to the grim 
method of her own revenge, the force of which 
Travers had accentuated by what could not fail to 
be taken as a confession of his guilt. 

“ Who is this man ? ” the Rector asked looking at 
the stranger within his gates. 

Travers still did not speak. 

“ I am Michel Vitre, this lady’s friend.” 

“ And she, poor soul ? ” asked the Rector, taking 
up one of her hands to find that she was pulseless, 
“ this poor dead creature ? ” 

“ The Princess Mazaroff,” said Vitre. “ Oh, my 
God, can nothing be done ? ” 

At this moment Dr. Williams entered the room 
with the butler, and went straightway to the body. 

« She is dead,” he said after little more than a 
momentary examination. 

The knife had fallen from the wound when the 
body struck the floor. The doctor picked it up, 
looked at it for a moment, and laid it upon a pedes- 
tal close by the body. “ How has this happened ?” 
he asked, addressing the Rector. 

“I do not know.” 

“ That man has killed her,” said Vitre, pointing 
to Travers. 

“ However that may be,” said the doctor, “ the 
police had better be sent for, Mr. Rector.” 

“Yes,” said Treinont, and, addressing the butler, 
he said, “ Go and bring the inspector.” 

Charlton- Glee ve and one or two adjacent villages 


mi! PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


289 


were under the police direction of a county inspector 
and a few men, whose lieadquarters were in that 
same long village street we have already described, 
and not far from the “ Green Man.” The butler 
said nothing more to the inspector than the mere 
delivery of the message that he was wanted immedi- 
ately at the Rectory ; but you could do nothing in 
a place like Charlton- Cleeve without attracting 
the attention of the whole village. The butler had 
been seen going for the doctor ; he was now observed 
walking very quickly to the police station. Several 
persons at once followed the inspector, who went 
out at a brisk walk, accompanied by the Rector’s 
butler, one of the best known servants in the x^arish. 
So that when the officer entered the Vicarage quite 
a little crowd stood about the gates. 

Nobody noticed at the time how quiet the rooks 
had suddenly become, but the point was made a 
great deal of at a later day both by naturalists and 
by superstitious people. 

“ Dick, my dear fellow, speak ! ” said Tremont, 
laying his hand affectionately upon his friend. 

Dick made no reply, but pressed Tremont’s hand, 
his eyes upon the dead body of the Princess. 

“ Have you nothing to say, my dear friend ? ” 

Dick withdrew his eyes from the body and fixed 
them upon Tremont’s face. 

“ The officer of police has been sent for,” said the 
Rector. 

“ Yes,” said Dick, rising up and shaking himself 
as if awakening from an ugly dream. 

19 


290 


PRlNOESS MAZABOPE. 


“ How did it happen ? Who is this woman ? ” 

“ I hoped I had sat here and dreamed it,” said 
Travers, passing his hand across his face, the hand 
which bore the scar of his adventure in the Place 
Vendome, “but it is all true.” 

Tremont turned away, for the inspector of the 
police had entered the room. 

“ Don’t go from me,” said Dick. “ I will tell you 
all about it.” 

But the Rector was called upon to speak to the 
officer. 

“What is the trouble, Mr. Rector?” asked the 
inspector, a wiry-looking and somewhat severe 
official. He had served as a sergeant in the Soudan, 
and his present office was one of the rewards of 
good conduct and influence which occasionally 
make places ui the police for army men. He wore 
a short military moustache, his hair was black and 
closely cropped, his manner official. 

“ Been dead long ? ” he asked, looking down upon 
the suicide. 

“ About half an hour, or less,” said the doctor. 

“Who is she?” asked the officer, notebook in 
hand. 

The doctor did not answer. The officer looked 
to the Rector for a reply. 

“ I do not know,” said the Rector. 

“The Princess Mazaroff— in Russia called the 
barina,” said Yitre. 

“ And who are you? ” asked the officer, writing in 
his book. 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


291 


« Michel Yitre, of Paris.” 

“ What occupation ? ” 

“ I am Michel Yitre, in the service of the Com- 
missary of Police in Paris,” said Yitre, drawing 
himself up and fixing the officer, with his ferret eyes. 

The inspector saluted him. 

“ I came here with the Princess on a mission to 
this gentleman, Monsieur Travers ; I usher her into 
his presence; I come later — I find her stabbed to 
death.” 

He went over to the pedestal and took up the 
knife where the doctor had laid it. 

“ With this knife, no doubt ; it lay by her body.” 

The officer took the knife from Yitre, and asked 
for a piece of paper in which to wrap it. 

“ Does any one own the knife ? ” he asked. 

There was no reply. 

“ Who was present when the woman met with 
her death ?” 

“ I was,” said Travers. 

“ Yes ? ” said the officer ; “ any one else?” 

“ Yo,” said Travers. 

“Then I would caution you,” said the officer, 
“ that your position may be a serious one. Prob- 
ably you can explain everything satisfactorily, but 
I warn you that it may be my duty to arrest you, 
aiid in that case anything you say may be given in 
evidence against you, should you be brought to 
trial.” 

“ Thank you,” said Travers, glancing at Tremont., 
who seemed to be on the point of resenting the 


292 the princess mazaroff, 

inspector’s remark. “ Nay, the officer is right ; it 
is only a usual and proper caution.” 

“ Who was the first to see the woman after her 
death? or perhaps one of you may have been present 
before she died?” 

He looked at the servants, and raised his hand 
against Travers, intimating, in a respectful way, 
that it might be well for some other person to 
answer. 

The servants looked at each other as if inquiring 
who should speak first. The butler nodded at 
John, the door-keeper; John made signs to Mary 
Wells, the parlour-maid. 

“ Please, sir, I see the poor lady before she were 
dead ; likewise Mr. Martin, the butler, and John 
see her also.” 

Mary Wells trembled a good deal as she spoke, 
and bit the corner of her frilled apron. 

“Don’t be afraid,” said the inspector; “tell me 
what you saw.” 

“ We heard a noise.” 

“ You heard a noise— not said the inspector ; 

“ only speak of what you heard.” 

“Yes, sir, I heard a noise.” 

“ What kind of a noise — some one calling, or 
crying, or what ? ” 

“ Some one crying, ‘ Help ! ’ ” 

“ Yes ; was it a woman’s voice ? ” 

“ No, sir, it was a man’s, I think. And I ran in, 
sir, with John and the butler, about the same minute, 
all of us.” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAUOFF. 293 

“Very well,” said the inspector, glancing from 
his book to the girl, and from the girl to the 
others. 

“We see the poor lady leaning against the wall. 
She was bleeding, sir, and we <;ould see that she had 
been stabbed with a kiyfe.” 

“ Yes ; wait a moment,” said the officer ; “ yon 
talk faster than I can Avrite.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the girl, continuing at a nod 
from the officer ; “ and she looked at Mr. Travers, 
sir, and then she looked at us, sir, and then ” 

Here it occurred to the girl that she miglit be 
doing her master’s guest an injury, and she simply 
added, “ And then the poor lady fell, slipped along 
the wall like, and gave a sigh, and was dead. Least- 
wise she was the next minute, and the knife fell 
out of her poor bosom, sir, upon the floor.” 

“Yes,” said the officer; “is that all? Did she 
say nothing ? ” 

The parlour-maid looked at the butler. 

“ Don’t look at Martin ; answer my question. 
Did she say anything?” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the girl. 

“ What did she ^ay ? ” 

“ She said ” 

The girl now looked at the Rector, smoothed her 
apron, and again hesitated. 

“ Answer the officer’s question,” said the Rector. 

“ She said he had done it.” 

“ Done it,” said the officer ; “ those were not her 
w Olds. Tell me exactly what she said.” 


294 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“ Shall I tell you ? ” said Travers, stepping for- 
ward. 

“No, I think not,” said the officer; “the girl 
seems frightened. Were you present also?” he 
asked, turning to the door-keeper. 

“Yes,” said the man. 

“ Very well; now, tell me what the poor woman 
said before she fell, as this young woman has de- 
scribed.” 

“ Why, sir, she said, a-looking at Mister Travers, 
‘ I were in his way, and he has killed me.’ ” 

“ Yes,” said the officer, writing — “ ‘ I was in his 
way, and he killed me.’ Well, and what happened 
then?” 

“Why, Mr. Travers, he said, ‘ By God, it’s true.’” 

“ ‘ By God, it’s true,’ ” said the officer, writing, 
and Tremont, turning to Travers, asked him with his 
eyes if the man had spoken the truth. Travers 
nodded and compressed his lips, as if to keep down 
something he was tempted to say. 

The officer asked if he might send the butler with 
a message to the village. The Rector said, “ Cer- 
tainly.” The officer told Martin to go and fetch a 
couple of men from the station. 

“ But first let me ask you a question.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the butler. 

“Were you present when this affair happened ? ” 

“ I see what Mary Wells, the parlour- maid, and 
John, the door-keeper, see,” said Martin. 

“ And what they say is true ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” said Martin. 


THE PRINCESS MAZARObF. 295 

“ Very well ; go to the station and bring me two 
men.” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ May I ask you a question, Dr. Williams ? 
Have you examined the body of this poor lady ? ” 

“ Only in a casual way ; simply to see if life was 
extmct. ” 

“ All I wish to know is, if she has died from 
a wound given with this knife ? ” 

“ I can only say there seems every probability of 
it.” 

“ She has been stabbed ? ” 

“ No doubt.” 

“ Thank you.” 

Then, turning to the Rector, the officer said, “ I 
fear I must ask you to allow the body to remain 
where it is ; so that the jury may view it where 
death occurred ; I will see that a woman shall re- 
main here until the jury can be summoned, and I 
will have the room properly guarded.” 

“ Certainly, if that is necessary,” said the Rector ; 
“though it seems inhuman not to have the poor 
creature carried to a bedroom that she may receive 
all the decent offices for the dead that one would 
desire, even for the poorest stranger.” 

“ I could forbid that ; but I will only say that it 
would be the proper thing for all concerned and in 
the interests of justice that nothing in this room 
should be disturbed, and that the body should 
remain where it is.” 

“ Then be it so,” said the Rector. 


296 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ And I am sorry to say, sir,” went on the officer, 
now addressing Travers, “ that I have a painful 
duty to perform ; I must ask you to consider your- 
self in custody ; I charge you with having caused 
the death of this woman ” 

‘‘But,” said the Rector, addressing the officer, 
“ I will be answerable for this gentleman ” 

“I am sorry, Mr. Rector, but he must go to the 
station. I hope he can explain to everybody’s 
satisfaction what has happened, but in face of the 
statements of your servants, my duty is very plain, 
as you must admit.” 

Two awkward county policemen made their 
appearance. “ See that no one enters or leaves this 
room without permission,” the inspector said to one 
of them. To the other he said, “ Go to the coroner 
and ask him to be good enough to come to me at 
once, if it is convenient. Also send your wife here, 
and let her bring Mrs. Berry from the station.” 

“Yes, sir,” said the policeman, saluting and dis- 
appearing. 

Vitre watched the proceedings with intense 
interest. 

“ If you would like to order a carriage to convey 
this gentleman to the station, I have no objection, 
of course,” said the inspector, addressmg the Rector. 

“ Yes,” said Tremont ; “ I will order it myself.” 

“Very well,” said the mspector, “perhaps you 
will accompany us ? ” 

“ I will,” said the Rector. 

“ The gentleman may desire to make some com- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 297 

munication to you ; I can only say we will make 
him as comfortable as we can. He may have pens 
and ink or see any friend, of course.” 

“ Thank you,” said the Rector, leaving the room. 

“ And now you may go,” said the inspector to the 
door-keeper and the maid-servant ; “ but bring a 
sheet and place it over the body.” 

“You came with this lady? ” said the inspector 
to Vitre. 

“ Tes.” 

“ Where from ? ” 

“Paris.” 

“ You will be wanted on this inquiry.” 

“ Yes.” 

-“You are going to remain in Charlton-Cleeve 
some time ? ” 

“I will do so.” 

“Very well. I will speak with you later. Where 
are you staying ? ” 

“ At the ‘ Green Man.’ ” 

The Rector ordered the carriage, and then went 
to Sir Gordon’s room. Dick’s father was fast asleep 
on the couch, where he had lain down after lun- 
cheon, thinking of all kmds of desirable schemes 
for the happiness of the bride and bridegroom. 

“ Sir Gordon,” he said, when he had awakened 
his guest, “ something very painful has happened.” 

“ What is it ? Something awful — your pale face 
says so. What is the matter ? ” 

“ My dear friend, you must summon to your aid 
all your courage and fortitude.” 


298 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“I will. What is it 

“ I do not know the beginning of the affair ; but 
the end of it is this. While we were resting after 
luncheon some lady — a Russian princess, they say — 
obtained access to Dick; and when he cried for 
help ” 

“ For help ! ” exclaimed Sir Gordon, greatly 
agitated. 

“ Calm yourself ! Dick has not been hurt.” 

“ Thank God ! ” said Sir Gordon. 

“ When he cried help, and the Servants ran into 
the room, the woman was dying. She had been 
stabbed, and sho charged Dick with having killed 
her.” 

“ By God, that is painful news, indeed ! ” exclaimed 
Sir Gordon. 

“ And the police inspector has no alternative but to 
make him a prisoner — at least, until the coroner 
has held his court.” 

Sir Gordon buttoned his waistcoat, looked at his 
watch, rubbed both his hands through his grey 
hair, went to the window, then took up his bowler 
hat, and said, “ Where is he ? ” 

“ He is just going to the station-house with the 
officer in my brougham.” 

“ Take me to him.” 

“Dick, why, my dear boy,” said Sir Gordon, 
laying his hand on the j)risoner’s shoulder, “ what’s 
all this I hear ? ” 

“ Don’t ask me just yet, father.” 

“ Don’t ask you, my boy — ^but I must.” 


TBE PtilNCESS MAZAPOFF. 299 

“ I will tell you everything soon.” 

The officer respectfully stood aside at the further- 
most end of the room, so that he need not hear any- 
thing that was said. The body of the unhappy 
Princess was covered over, and a barrier of chairs 
was placed before it. 

“ I am rather dazed, my lad ; hardly feel that I 
have heard aright ; but they charge you with having 
killed some person. Is that charge true ? ” 

“ No, father. ” 

“ Thank heaven for that ; but, great God, what is 
the meaning of it all ? ” 

“ I will tell you, lather, in a little while. Won’t 
you go and break the news to Mr. and Mrs. Somers 
and to Gerty and to ” 

Here Dick broke down for the first time. He 
fiung himself into a chair, his head upon the table, 
and he was shaken with a violent fit of sobbing. 

The Rector sat by him. 

“Don’t give way, Dick. She is a brave girl. 
I will see her mother. I will talk to Gerty. They 
will know you are innocent. They both love you. 
Trust them. Trust me, Dick.” 

Dick arose, shaking Treniont’s hand, and said, 
“ Father, this is a terrible business ; I am to blame, 
but not for her death. Don’t hate me as I hate my- 
self. Think for me — think for all of us. I will go 
with this man now.” 

“ The carriage is ready,” said the officer. 

“ No, don’t come with us,” said Dick to his father ; 
“ Tremont is coming. Go to Cleeve House ; prepare 


300 


PRINCESS MAZAROFP. 


them. You are a strong, courageous, loving man, 
father — go to them.” 

It was true that Sir Gordon was all Dick had 
said ; but his courage had never been so grievously 
taxed as it was with this mission to Cleeve House, 
no breath or whisper of the trouble having as yet 
reached that happy home. 


TBE PRINCESS MAZABOEE. 


301 


CHAPTER XX. 

STOBM AND TEMPEST. 

** Why let the stricken deer go weep, 

The hart ungall^d play ? 

For some must watch, while some must sleep ; 

So runs the world away.”— SAafcespeare. 

By the time that Travers was seated in the inspec- 
tor’s room at the local headquarters of the county 
police all Charlton- Cleeve was in an indescribable 
commotion. Under the elms by the Rectory gates, 
opposite the police-station, in front of Cleeve House, 
and on the steps of the “ Green Man,” excited groups 
of people were assembled to talk and- wonder, and 
to enlarge upon such scraps of the tragic story as 
they had picked up. At the village doorways women 
and children were gathered together, looking wist- 
fully towards the tavern and the station-house. 
The flags were still flying, and the sun was shining, 
but it was noticeable that the heavens were begin- 
ning to be overcast, either with blight or the cloudy 
forerunner of storm and tempest. 

“ Somers,” said Sir Gordon, “ come into your room 
with me, and shut the door.” 

“ Yes, Sir Gordon, by all means ; you are excited.” 


302 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROEE, 


“ I am crazy, Somers ! By the Lord, now, if the 
world were to come to an end I should not be 
astonished.” 

“ What is it ? ” asked Somers, following Sir Gordon 
into the library, and closing the door behind him. 

“ Have you any spirits in the place ? ” 

“ Kot here.” 

“ Order some in.” 

Somers rang the bell. 

“ Bring the spirit case and some water,” he said 
to the servant. 

Sir Gordon walked to and fro. 

The servant brought the spirits^ 

Sir Gordon poured out a measure, and offered it 
to Somers. He took a glass himself. 

“Drink, my friend; you will need it. I have 
awful news to tell you ; and yet I hardly know what 
has happened.” 

Somers laid aside his glass, and waited. 

“ They have taken my son to the lock-up.” 

“ To the lock-up ! ” repeated Somers. 

“ Some strange woman went to the Rectory, a 
princess, they say — some connection, I suppose, of 
this African expedition ; I know not. But she is 
dead — stabbed, and my son is under arrest.” 

“ Good Heavens ! ” exclaimed Somers. “ With 
what do they charge him ? ” 

“ They say he killed her, but, of course, that is not 
so. I generally keep my presence of mind under 
circumstances that upset weaker men, but, my dear 
Somers, I find it hard to prevent myself from crying 


THE PEIHCESS MAZAEOFF. 


303 


out and making a fool of myself. I cannot realise 
what has happened ; all I really know is that Dick 
is in your local prison, that he is charged with kill- 
ing a woman, that the woman is lying dead at the 
Rectory, and that to-morrow he was to marry one 
of the sweetest and best girls in the world.” 

Sir Gordon sat down and wiped his face, which 
was deadly pale, though wet with perspiration. 

“ It is like some hideous fable. I will go and see 
what it really means,” said Mr. Somers. “Mean- 
while I will send Mrs. Somers to you.” 

Somers went to his stables, had his cob saddled, 
and rode up to the police-station. Half a dozen 
hands were stretched out to hold his horse. When 
he entered the inspector’s office, he was shown to an 
inner room where Dick and the Rector were sitting 
in the presence of a policeman. The officer saluted 
the Sheriff-elect with great deference. 

“Why, Travers, my dear boy, what is the 
matter ? ” 

“ I am unworthy of your daughter,” said Dick, 
his lips trembling ; “ not so bad as I seem, perhaps, 
but too bad for a good virtuous woman.” 

“ Nay, nay ; whatever it is, I am sure you will be 
able to explain it. These expeditions into savage 
countries have always some disagreeable incidents, 
that’s a fact ; but what is it. Rector? ” 

“ Have you seen Sir Gordon ? ” asked the Rector. 

“Yes ; he is at the house now. I have just sent 
Mrs. Somers to him.” 

“I don’t think at present I can tell you any more. 


304 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


It is a very strange affair, and we must wait patiently 
for its development. I would suggest that you 
wire to Worcester for your lawyer, and that Sir 
Gordon also procures legal aid and advice from his 
own solicitors.” 

“ Yes ; why, certainly,” said Somers. “ Where is 
the inspector?” 

The inspector entered at the moment. He saluted 
the Sheriff-elect, saying, “ A very unfortunate busi- 
ness, Mr. Somers. What can I do for you, sir ? ” 

“ Give me a telegram form, please.” 

“ Yes, sir,” said the inspector, stepping into his 
office and producing form and pencil. 

Mr. Somers wrote his message, the inspector 
sent a policeman out with it, and then remarked to 
the Rector : “ Inquest at ten in the morning at the 
‘ Green Man ’ ; the jury will view the body at nine.” 

“Very well,” said the Rector. 

“ After nine to-morrow the body can be prepared 
for burial, in regard to which I will consult with you 
this evening. I will take your advice and carry out 
your wishes.” 

“ Yes,” said the Rector ; “ and now, Mr. Somers, if 
you will remain with Dick until I return, I will go 
and see Mrs. Somers and your daughter.” 

“ By all means,” said Somers. 

“ I don’t wish Dick to be left alone.” 

“ Quite right, poor fellow,” said Somers ; “ I will 
remain with him.” 

“ You are very good,” said Dick. “ You will not 
be long away, Tremont ? ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 305 

“ Not an hour,” said the Rector, taking his hand ; 
“ be of good cheer.” 

The Rector made the best of his way through 
the groups of inquiring villagers to Cleeve House. 
Here he saw Mrs. Somers, and told her all he knew 
and could devise, making suggestions to her as to 
how the dreadful business should be broken to 
her daughter. Mrs. Somers had almost fainted 
when Sir Gordon had told his brief and . terrible 
story, but, by the time the Rector appeared, she 
was, to all outward appearances, calm and self- 
possessed. 

“ Of course,” she said, “ the wedding cannot take 
place to-morrow.” 

« That is as may be thought best by yourself and 
Somers,” rei)lied Sir Gordon, who had sat through 
the Rector’s interview with Mrs. Somers. 

“ It is all so sudden and appalling,” said the 
Rector, “ that it would be well to try and look at 
the situation with something like calmness before 
arriving at any positive decision.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Somers. “I must see Evelyn at 
once, before any one else can speak to her of the 
dreadful business ; excuse me now,” and she left the 
room just as Wykeham came in. 

“ Hello, you slyboots ! ” he said, “ taking a nip in 
the afternoon. Well, it is very hot — I don’t mind 
a little soda — but no brandy, thank you. There is 
going to be a storm, I think.” 

Wykeham helped himself to a bottle of soda- 
water. 


20 


306 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“Where have you been, Mr. Wykeham?” the 
Rector asked. 

“ For a walk in the woods. Beautiful day, but 
we are going to have a storm, I fancy.'’ 

“ You have heard nothing,” asked the Rector, 
“ about the storm we have had already ? ” 

“ Heard nothing ! How serious you look, and — 
Sir Gordon, why, what is the matter ? ” 

“ Where is your wife ? ” was Tremont’s answer. 
“ She is in the drawing-room with Gerty, resting 
before they take off their thing. , ” 

“ Excuse me, I will go to the n ” said the Rector ; 
“ Sir Gordon will tell you what has happened.” 

The Rector went into the drawing-room, where 
he found Mrs. Wykeham and Gerty reclining in the 
easiest chairs they could find. 

“ Mrs. Wykeham, glad to see you,” said the 
Rector, taking her hand, “ and you. Miss Travers ; 
but sorry to be the bearer of unpleasant news. 
May I have a word with you, Mrs. Wykeham? I 
had intended first to speak to Miss Gerty, but, my 
dear, I would suggest that you go to your room 
and I will send your father to you. ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Tremont, what is it ? ” said Gerty rising 
to her feet and making towards him, while Mrs. 
Wykeham, impressed by his manner, also rose up 
with more than her customary alacrity. 

“ It is something sad, but you must have patience. 
I will tell you this much; some person has sud- 
denly appeared at the Rectory and a charge has 
been made against your brother, upon which he has 


TEE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 307 

gone to the police station ; but Mr. Somers is with 
him. On second thoughts, perhaps the best thing 
will be for you to go to your father ; you will find 
him in the library with Mr. Wykeham.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Gerty running from the room. 

“ I think that is best ; she is young, and her 
father will know how to soothe her.” 

“.Well, my dear Rector, that is best for Gerty? 
no doubt, but don’t keep me in suspense. ” 

“ I want to tell you what has happened at once, 
because I think you may help to console Mrs. 
Somers and — Evelyn. The affair is very painful. 
Nay, sit down again, and be as calm as you can.” 

Mrs. Wykeham sat down ; the Rector sat by her 
side. 

“ Briefly, Ibis has happened : a strange woman — 
they say, a princess — arrived at the Rectory after 
luncheon ; had an interview with Dick ; by-and-by 
he called for help ; the woman was found dying ; 
she had been stabbed, and with her last breath she 
accused Dick of killing her.” 

Mrs. Wykeham clasped her hands and stared at 
the Rector speechless. 

“ I had Dr. Williams called in ; he sent for the 
police, and they have taken Dick to the station- 
house.” 

“ You take away my breath ! ” gasped Mrs. 
Wykeham. “ I can’t believe my ears ; but my eyes 
tell me that you are speaking the truth — your face 
is so pale, and your lips tremble. What is to be 
done ? ” 


308 


THE PRINCE as MAZAROFF. 


She rose from her chair. 

“ What can I do? ” 

“ Mrs. Somers is now with her daughter, ” said 
the Rector. “ You are a woman of experience and 
recource : I will leave it to you to do what you 
think best. ” 

“ He is really charged with murder, then ! ” she 
exclaimed ; “ that is the long and the short of it ! 
And on the day before his marriage. Gracious 
heavens ! It is not the time to say so, but I never 
liked him ; never thought him the man for our 
Evelyn ; you know that. Oh, Rector, Rector, if you 
had only been a little selfish in your love, a little 
less Quixotic in your friendship? ” 

“ My dear Mrs. Wykeham, pray no comment at 
present. If I can be of any service, let me know. 
I am going back to the station-house to relieve 
Somers ; I will send him to you.” 

He took her hand as he left the room, remarking, 
“ Perhaps you had better find Gerty ; but you know 
best. For the present, good-bye.” 

Meanwhile all sorts of reports spread throughout 
the village. The wedding guests were more espe- 
cially in a ferment of excitement. They, none of 
them, however, had the bad taste to send to Cleeve 
House for news. They waited patiently for any com- 
munication that might be made to them. From the 
police they could learn but little, not so much, in 
fact, as they could learn from the village gossips. 
At the Rectory, however, they had strong con- 
firmation of the worst reports, finding there a 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


309 


policeman in charge of the entrance to the house, 
and at the door a crowd of people, in possession of 
sufficient facts for the visitors to incline to the 
belief that there would be no wedding on the 
morrow. 

A local newspaper correspondent had wired all he 
could learn to the Birmingham daily papers, sending 
at the same time duplicates to the London press . The 
late special evening editions of the Post and the 
Gazette of the midland city contained some of the 
chief items of the startling story, the sensationalism 
of which lay not alone in the tragedy itself, but in 
the occurrence taking place on the eve of a wedding 
in which the entire county had taken the greatest 
interest, but also on account of the position of the 
families concerned, and the fame of the African 
pioneer. 

“ I knew I was too happy,” were the first words 
that Evelyn uttered, as she lay in her mother’s 
arms, “ 1 knew I was too happy.” 

“Be comforted,” said the mother, pressing the 
girl to her heart ; “ it may not be anything like so 
bad as it appears to be.” 

Evelyn could not cry ; she simply twined her 
arms about her mother. 

“ You still have a loving father and mother,” 
went on Mrs. Somers. “We shall love you all the 
more for your sorrow.” 

“You are very dear to me,” whispered Evelyn. 

“ And this affair may blow over, after all ” 

“They say he killed her?” said Evelyn, looking 


310 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFV. 


up for a moment, “ some savage from those wild 
places ? ” 

“ I daresay.” 

“ In self-defence ? Why, such an act might even 
be laudable!” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Somers, greatly relieved that at 
last Evelyn could talk about what had happened. 

“ She tried to kill him and — Oh, but it is terrible 
and at such a time ! ” 

“ Be comforted, dear,” the mother repeated. 
“ Ask God to help you ; He will, clear. He will ! ” 

“ God is merciful ; but Dick is in prison ! I will 
go to him.” 

She raised herself up, but her mother held her. 

“ Yes, so you shall, by-and-by, dear, of course, 
but not yet ; he may come to you. We must be 
calm, love.” 

“Yes,” said the girl, “ we must be calm,” lying 
back again in her mother’s arms. 

“You will be advised, dear, will you not, by your 
father and by your mother? Sir Gordon is here, 
and Gerty.” 

“ Poor Gerty, poor Sir Gordon,” escaped the girl’s 
lips with a great sigh. 

“ It is very sad, but we must bear it,” said the 
mother. 

“Heaven does not like poor mortals to be too 
happy ! ” said the girl, with the faintest tone of 
bitterness. 

“ God knows what is best for us,” said the mother, 
stroking the girl’s long fair hair. 


TBE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 311 

“ Yes,” said the girl, “ God knows best ; but Dick 
is in prison, and it will break my heart.” 

“No, dear, no; you are brave, and you will not 
wish to break my heart, dear ; you will if you do 
not take comfort. Try to bear it all for my sake ; 
and for his, dear, for his ; he will want to know that 
you are brave.” 

“ Yes, for your sake and his,” said the girl; “ and 
he will want to know that I am brave. Well, he 
shall know that — I will tell him. He will not ask 
if I am true ; that I love him all the same, and that 
the more sorrow he has to endure, the more I will 
love him, the more devoted I will be as his wife ; 
he knows all that ! ” 

“Yes, dear,” said the mother, not, however, with- 
out a little flutter of regret at the last words of 
Evelyn’s loyal outbreak. 

Mrs. Somers’s flrst thought after her daughter 
was the question of postponing to-morrow’s proceed- 
ings. “ Of course, the wedding must be put off,” 
she said to herself. Like the clever diplomat she 
was, she said nothing of this to her daughter at 
present; but later, when Somers came home and 
said that the knife which had caused the woman’s 
death bore the name of Richard Travers engraven 
on the blade, and that the case looked very serious 
against him, Mrs. Somers consulted with Sir Gordon, 
and finally asked her daughter to leave herself en- 
tirely in the hands of her own mother and father, 
who would be guided by the advice of Sir Gordon 
in regard to what had been arranged for the morrow. 


312 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF, 


“You mean that we are not to be married to- 
morrow ? ” said Evelyn, looking her mother steadily 
in the face with her dry eyes. 

“ That we do not decide until we have consulted 
Dick.” 

“ I am to see him ? ” 

“Yes, certainly.” 

“ Then I will tell him as I tell you, that it is for 
him to speak ; I am his, whatever happens ; I will 
marry him in a prison or in a dungeon, be he rich or 
poor, a beggar or a prisoner — even a criminal.” 

Her eyes flashed wildly as she spoke, and her 
voice became harsh and unlike the soft, sweet, clear 
voice the mother had known and heard for so many 
years. 

“ Nothing shall stand between us ! nothing ! no- 
body ! Not even God ! ” exclaimed the girl. 

“ Oh, my love, oh, my dear ! ” exclaimed the 
mother, “ don’t say such dreadful things.” 

“ You heard? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ All I said ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then I will not repeat it— only that I am his, 
his, his ! ” and with a slowly reiterated repetition of 
this monosyllable, she gradually slipped back into 
her mother’s arms in a state of insensibility, in which 
condition she remained in spite of salts and eau de 
cologne and every remedy the loving mother could 
think of. 

Laying the girl upon the couch where they had 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 313 

been sitting together, Mrs. Somers obtained the as- 
sistance of Mrs. Wykeham and a servant to carry 
her to bed, where, in due course, Dr. Williams saw 
her and agreed that perhaps it was better her illness 
should come now than later ; she was suffering from 
a mental shock ; he hoped they might save her from 
an attack of brain fever. 

And so the sad business moved along ; the sequel 
to that unfortunate meeting of the Princess and 
Travers on the Orient at Brindisi, with its attendant 
sins of omission and commission, and its want of 
that true moral courage which, at first blush, you 
would have said Dick Travers possessed in abun- 
dance. He assuredly had a fair share of moral 
courage and in a general way of moral conduct ; but 
Love is a factor in the lives of men and women with 
which you can never tell how you may have to 
reckon or when. 

While the doctor was writing out a prescription 
for his patient, and Somers was giving instructions 
to his bailiff to see that all the flags about the place 
were taken down and folded up by the morning, 
the storm which had threatened all the afternoon 
broke over Charlton- Cleeve and the surrounding 
country. It was such a storm of thunder, light- 
ning, and rain as Charlton- Cleeve had never seen 
the like. 

First there drove up from the river great black 
clouds that rose one above the other as if moved in 
anger by the divine hand. 

On and on, and up and up they came, forming 


314 the princess MAZAROFF. 

above the valley and over church and Manor-house 
in vast battalions, cumulative, augmenting, moun- 
tains upon mountains. 

Presently there was a tinge of red on the moving 
masses of cloud, as if the sun was setting and a stray 
shaft or two had penetrated the overhanging curtains 
of vapour. As yet no rain fell. The country folk 
regarded that as a bad sign ; for they say it is safer 
to have rain with a thunder-storm. 

The people stood at their doors looking out into 
the sudden night. It was dark as midnight, though 
it was not yet the time of evensong. 

Then, as if the battalions had gathered and the 
signal for the artillery to open fire had been given, 
there was an angry flash of light, and upon the sheet 
of flame itself there was a streak of fork-lightning 
that played in the heavens for a second, and the next 
moment, with a peal of thunder that shook the earth? 
the old church steeple of Charlton- Glee ve tottered 
and fell with a mighty crash. 

The people thought the last day had come, for, 
now that the storm had opened, it went on like ten 
thousand cannons flring and thundering. The sky 
was alight. The earth trembled. Then the rain 
began to fall in torrents, and as it fell the heavens 
grew lighter, but in a dull grey fashion. The light- 
ning became more intermittent, and the thunder 
farther off By-and-by the storm abated greatly. 
The people breathed afresh and feared no longer. 

The last light of the setting sun fell softly upon 
field and hedgerow ; but it was unusually red upon 


TUE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


315 


the windows of the Manor-house. This was noticed 
by many who did not know what had happened there 
— that terrible event which, to the country people, 
seemed to be part of the storm ; as if the Russian 
woman had raised it ; as if she had brought the very 
devil into the parish ; a peaceful place that not in 
all its history had had to reckon with murder ; un- 
less you put war into that category ; for there had 
been some fighting done in Charlton- Cleeve in the 
old days, and the battle of Worcester was a local 
memory full of well-authenticated incidents of brave 
if useless deeds that had been done for the king by 
the gallant knights of Cleeve. 


316 


TBE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE COEONEE, THE POLICE, AND THE COMING ASSIZE. 

“ Where are the songs I used to know ? 

Where are the notes I used to sing ? 

I have forgotten everything 
I used to know so long ago ; 

Summer has followed after spring ; 

Now autumn is so shrunk and sere, 

I scarcely think a sadder thing 
Can be the winter of my year.” 

Christina G. Bosseti. 

The sun rose the next morning calm and soft. It 
seemed to caress the landscape. It shone soothingly 
upon cottage windows. It dwelt lovingly upon 
the village street. It decorated the rain-drops that 
still hung upon leaf and flowers with diamond hues. 
The morning broke indeed, as morning often breaks 
after storm and tempest, with something like apol- 
ogy in its windless skies looking down upon wreck 
and sorrow. 

Not a flag, however, was to be seen even with the 
flrst blush of daylight ; and long before twelve sol- 
emn men entered the Rectory to view the body of 
the Princess Mazaroff, the servants at Cleeve House 
and the men at Charlton Manor were removing the 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 317 

tents and wiping out every outward sign of fes- 
tivity. 

The rooks no longer paid any attention to these 
things. Although on the previous day they had 
noted the unfurlhig of the gay streamer from the 
crow-hole of the church steeple, they did not on the 
morrow even caw their surprise or displeasure at 
the shattered tower or the broken steeple. They 
went about their business as if nothing unusual had 
occurred. Not so the village of Charlton- Cleeve 
and the neighbouring townships. The long street 
was full of people. There was a crowd round the 
“ Green Man,” another about the police-station, 
where, by the way, Dick Travers sat wide-awake 
staring into vacancy, while his friend and compan- 
ion, dead beat, physically and mentally, had fallen 
fast asleep, and lay with his head upon his arms 
half-way across the wliite deal table that occupied 
the middle of the room, near which sat the attend- 
ant policeman. 

All the morning horses and carriages rattled into 
the village, some on account of the wedding, others 
attracted by what they called the Charlton murder. 
The news had not yet spread throughout the county. 
Several wedding guests arrived miconscious of the 
tragedy of the previous night, but full of gossip and 
inquiry about the storm, which had done great dam- 
age for twenty miles round, and had made a fatal 
record on the other side of the hills, where the light- 
ning had killed an old man of seventy, and played 
havoc with the sheep he was tending. 


31S 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFE 


The inspector of police gave his guests breakfast. 
The Rector, after an hour of troubled sleep, had 
looked up bewildered for a moment, but was speed- 
ily alert in his inquiries. Had anything been heard 
of the Cleeve House people? Yes, Dr. Wilhams 
was there with Evelyn. How was Dick? The 
prisoner said he felt as if he would awaken presently 
to find that he had had a bad dream. 

Durmg the night, with the permission of the in- 
spector, the two friends had been left by themselves 
for a couple of hours, during which time Dick had 
told the Rector the entire story of the Princess, from 
the first moment of his meeting with her until she 
denounced him as her murderer. He kept nothing 
back, not a single detail that he could remember. 
The Rector listened with sympathy, and realised to 
the full the impression Evelyn Somers could not fail 
to make upon Dick in the midst of his unholy enter- 
tainment of the Russian beauty. What troubled the 
Rector was the fact that there was for a jury only 
the unsupported word of the prisoner for the tragic 
details of the interview which concluded with the 
woman’s death, except in so far as the immediate 
close of it was concerned, and to that there were 
several witnesses all reporting the damning charge 
of the woman and the strange inculpatory words of 
the prisoner. Dick explained that the exclamation 
which was already spoken of as his confession was an 
expression of his remorse for having given the Prin- 
cess reason for her passion of revenge ; he felt that 
he had behaved selfishly and cruelly, that his neglect 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 319 

and broken promise had led to her death ; and al- 
though he had not lifted his hand against her, he 
felt morally guilty of her death. The Rector turned 
the story over in his mind, thinking how it could best 
be presented before the law, and found himself 
seriously disturbed on account of the strong circum- 
stantiality of the evidence that would undoubtedly 
be offered against his friend. 

John Tremont’s anxiety was fully justified by 
the inquest. The woman’s dymg charge and the 
prisoner’s admission were sufficient for any coroner’s 
inquest to bring in a verdict of wilful murder ; but 
the coroner showed every desire to give the prisoner 
ample opportunity to offer rebutting evidence. His 
lawyer was permitted an undue licence in asking 
the witnesses questions, and also in the way of cross- 
examination. Michel Vitre, for example, was sub- 
jected to a severe ordeal, and the lawyer did not 
stop at an inference that Vitro ought to be detained, 
on suspicion of being concerned in a conspiracy 
against the prisoner. This was merely, however, 
an attempt to prejudice the minds of the jury 
against the witness, who swore he had never seen 
the knife with which the Princess was killed, and 
that if the Princess had brought it with her from 
Paris he must have seen it. Oddly enough, the 
lawyer, who had made such a point of trying to 
show that the knife had been brought by the 
Princess for the purpose of her premeditated death, 
did not ask Estelle Dubois a single question upon 
it, though she could have told the court its history. 


320 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


and would have done so, as she did later when she 
gave evidence before the magistrates, though with 
little or no effect upon the other evidence condem- 
natory of the prisoner. 

The coroner’s inquest was only a preliminary 
inquiry but it foreshadowed the nature of the charge 
and the possibilities of the defence. Every person 
who had seen the Princess on the day of her arrival, 
and the servants who had been present during her 
last moments, were examined on oath before the 
jury, and tjieir depositions taken. The doctor was 
pressed by the legal representative of the prisoner 
upon one point, in regard to which the Rector 
deeply regretted to see him waver. He was asked 
whether the position of the wound was not such as 
to bear out the construction of the defence that the 
woman had stabbed herself. He would not venture 
to be at all positive on this point. It might be so. 
He would not say it was not so. He would not 
like to offer an opinion until after the post-mortem. 
It would be better to ask the question from an 
expert. The lawyer reminded him that it was not 
a question for a surgical expert any more than it 
was for a man of ordinary intelligence. The doctor 
replied that he did not agree with the lawyer ; he 
thought it was a question for an expert, and a 
question that could not be answered without a 
careful examination of the direction of the wound 
and the position of the woman when she received 
it. Then the coroner reminded the lawyer and 


TMB PRINCESS MAZAROFE. 321 

doctor both that the inspector of police was of 
opinion that the wound was quite consistent with 
the hypothesis that the woman had committed 
suicide, and the investigation became somewhat 
informal. Nevertheless, Dr. Williams, who was a 
very careful and conscientious man, could not be 
induced to vary or modify his opinion, though he 
would very much have liked to do so, seeing that 
he was a friend of the Rector, and the family 
medical attendant of the Somerses. 

On behalf of the prisoner, it was offered by way 
of explanation that he gave the knife to the 
Prmcess in Paris, and that, with the connivance of 
Vitro she had come to Charlton Manor to exercise 
some undue influence upon the prisoner, failing 
which, she had, in accordance with her threats, 
taken her own life, and in a fit of vengeance had 
charged Travers with killing her. It was true that 
the prisoner had used words that the witnesses 
seemed to regard as an admission of his guilt ; but 
these words were simply the remorseful exclama- 
tion of a man whose better nature was pathetically 
moved by a sentiment of remorse at being the mi- 
intentional cause of the woman’s madness, for such, 
the lawyer ventured to say, had been the condition 
of mind of the deceased lady when she came to the 
Rectory, and when she took her own life and charged 
the crime on the man who had been her friend. 
Moreover, her maid, Estelle Dubois, whose deep grief 
was a sufficient evidence of her sincerity, said she 
believed her mistress had taken her own life, and 
21 


322 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


that she had often threatened to do so if Monsieur 
Travers should ever desert her. 

Nevertheless, after two days of careful inquiry and 
summing up of the coroner that was very favourable 
to the prisoner, the jury to a man — being honest 
men and true, and sworn to find a verdict in accord- 
ance with the evidence — returned a verdict of wilful 
murder agamst Richard Travers ; and the very next 
day there appeared at Charlton-Cleeve one Allen 
Knott, a traveller who said he had been through 
the Dark Continent with Dick Travers, but had 
deserted on account of his chief’s cruelties, and 
that he always knew he would come to grief 
one day on account of his bloodguiltiness, and he 
was there to acquaint the police with what he knew 
of him. Eventually he left Charlton-Cleeve with 
Monsieur Vitre. Estelle Dubois elected to accept 
the invitation of Mrs. Somers to make her home at 
Cleeve House. 

As Evelyn Somers began to recover from a 
severe illness, she found at her bedside one of 
the most patient and sympathetic of assistant 
nurses in the little Russo-French maid of the dead 
Princess. 

In due course the police took the case in hand. 
The prisoner was now formally lodged in the county 
gaol. He was brought before the county magistrates 
sitting at the little town of Pershore, whence the 
active interest of the local community was removed 
from Charlton-Cleeve. The coroner’s inquest had 
lasted three days. The county magistrates dealt 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


323 


with the case at two sittings. They had before 
them learned counsel on both sides. Monsieur 
Vitre had emptied his purse upon a lawyer’s table in 
Worcester for the best advice and assistance. He 
convinced a shifty but clever legal man of the faith- 
ful city with his power to pay any amount of fees, 
and inoculated him with his own antipathy against 
Travers.* Vitre lied to him, fawned on him, threat- 
ened, did everything he could think of to impress 
the English lawyer, who drew a tremendous brief on 
Vitre’s account against Travers ; and Vitre claimed 
to represent the interests of the Mazaroff family as 
against the murderer of the Princess. 

Allen Knott, the enemy of Travers, who had lain 
in wait for him to pay off his grudge, found an en- 
thusiastic ally in Vitre. Knott had already written 
to the papers recounting his alleged experiences as 
a member of the staff of Travers in Africa. It had 
been pointed out that such disclosures or charges 
at the moment were in cruel bad taste, to say the 
least ; but Allen Knott, who had gone to Africa hoping 
to make a name as well as a fortune, to say nothing 
of indulging his worst passions, had eventually 
found himself penniless and a wanderer upon the 
earth, glad to have escaped with his life, for it had 
been a question in the Travers camp whether he 
should not be shot. Travers had discharged him and 
stripped him of every mark of authority, leaving him 
at a convenient place upon the journey where he 
could comit upon assistance from friendly natives, 
his crimes having really deserved death, the favour 


324 the princess MAZAROFF. 

that had been shown to him being criminal rather 
than merciful. 

It is not necessary to relate what were Knott’s 
offences, but, whatever they were, he charged them 
now upon his chief, and counsel was advised of 
the record of Richard Travers according to Allen 
Knott. He was ready to go into the box whenever 
he was called upon to give evidence as to the pas- 
sionate, cruel, and bloodthirsty character of Richard 
Travers, who, according to the woman he had 
pledged himself to marry if she could obtain a 
divorce, had deliberately stabbed her to death when 
he found that she came between him and the latest 
object of his desires. 

This was the Vitre and Knott side of the indict- 
ment, and whatever use was made of it at the 
Assizes later on, the magistrates at Pershore con- 
cluded that it was not necessary for them to go 
into. They heard the whole of the evidence that 
had been taken before the coroner, in addition to 
some that was new. Among the fresh witnesses an 
eminent surgeon was called who had with Dr. 
Williams performed the post-mortem examination ; 
he was of opinion that the nature and position of 
the wound was not inconsistent with its being self- 
inflicted. In cross-examination, Estelle Dubois de- 
posed that the knife had been given to her mistress 
in Paris by Mr. Travers, and that she had no doubt 
the Princess had taken it to Charlton Manor ; and 
that the Princess had threatened to take her own 
life if Mr. Travers should ever desert her. Re-ex- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 325 

amined, the witness stated that since she had lost 
her mistress she had been treated very kindly by 
Mrs. Somers, and that she was now in that lady’s 
service ; deeply compassionated the unhappy state 
of Miss Somers, and had always respected and 
admired the prisoner. 

The magistrates, after a long consultation in their 
private room, committed the prisoner for trial on the 
charge of wilful murder; and the general opinion 
was that the evidence against him was overwhelm- 
ing. Great sympathy was felt and expressed for 
Sir Gordon Travers and the Somerses ; and the 
county journals dwelt, with all the pathos of which 
their pens were capable, on the fact that Mr. Grafton 
Somers was the Sheriff-elect and would have to 
attend upon the judges of the Assize, before whom 
the prisoner, who was to have been his son-in-law, 
would be arraigned. It was known that Mr. Som- 
ers had intended to meet their lordships with more 
than usual state ; and that his friends and neigh- 
bours had counted upon showing their respect for 
him by mustering at Cleeve House to accompany 
him and his javelin men to the County Hall at Wor- 
cester. What arrangements would be made under 
the unhappily changed circumstances would tran- 
spire, no doubt, during the winter. In the mean- 
time the two families of Somers and Travers might 
perhaps feel that it was some little consolation to 
know that they had the heartfelt sympathy of the 
entire county. 

The Assize was the regular gaol delivery held in 


326 the princess mazaroff. 

March. Long before the winter was over Evelyn 
Somers had sufficiently recovered to see Travers in 
his narrow quarters at Worcester, and she had 
behaved with a steady firmness at each meeting with 
her lover. She had assured him of her unalterable 
love. She neither upbraided nor excused him for his 
relationship with the Princess Mazaroff. She impli-. 
citly believed his story ; she was convinced beyond all 
doubt that the woman had killed herself, being tired 
of her life, and viciously desiring to be avenged upon 
the man she had professed to love. Evelyn Somers, 
without bravado and without undue emphasis, had 
informed both her father and mother that nothing 
that might happen to Dick Travers could alter her 
love for him. All her learning, all her wisdom, all 
her strong-mindedness, had availed her nothing in 
taking a careful view of her position and that of her 
family. She had only one thought, and that was 
her love for Travers. She desired in every way to 
make this conform as much as possible to the wishes 
of her parents ; but if she listened respectfully to 
what they said in disparagement of her marriage 
with Travers, even if he were acquitted, their argu- , 
ments made no impression upon her ; she was re- 
solved that only death should separate her from 
Travers. She likened him in her thoughts to Ulys- 
ses, trapped into all kinds of snares and troubles, 
but never losmg thought of Penelope, nor she of 
him. If Dick had known her before he had met the 
Princess Mazaroff his love for her would have 
saved him from the snares of Circe, and his career 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


327 


would have been spotless. He had paid dearly 
enough for his lapse from duty and froih honour, 
but it was not for her to punish him, not for her 
to fall away from him ; nor would she. 

Since the committal of Travers, Tremont had been 
untiring in his services to the defence. He had 
visited Paris for the purpose of hunting up details 
as to the antecedents of the Princess Mazaroff. He 
had got together a little history of the life of Vitre 
so far as it was associated with the Princess. PT^om 
various sources he had discovered the utter worth- 
lessness of Allen Knott’s statements ; and in this mat- 
ter had been asked by his friend to take no further 
trouble; Dick could give ample and corroborative 
denial of Knott’s arraignment if required to do so. 
Counsel had also advised that the Knott phase of the 
case against him was of no importance. Tremont had 
unearthed the record of one of the cases of vengeance 
to which the Princess had referred during what 
might be called the beginning of her suicidal mania 
in Paris; and on his return to London was com- 
plimented by counsel. This was at a consultation 
with two of the learned men who were in constant 
communication with the family solicitor of Sir 
Gordon Travers. 

“ If,” said one of the distinguished advocates, 
“some person could have overheard the interview 
between Travers and the Princess, what a blessing 
that would have been ! ” 

“ In a play,” said Mr. Emden, the other barrister, 
who was kuowu as well for his literary labours as 


328 the princess mazaropf. 

for his legal engagements, “of course, we should 
have had him behind the portiere that covered the 
door leading to the dining-room.” 

“ Emden knows all'about plays,” said his profes- 
sional brother, Mr. Alcott Hume, “ but truth is a 
hard master ; you can’t hide him ; he will out, like 
murder.” 

“Yes,” said Emden, “ truth is a troublesome fellow. 
Hume knows that because he is always trying to 
put him down. But in my experience I have found 
that a lie is sometimes more potent than a truth.” 

“ Mr. Emden feels,” said the lawyer, turning to 
Tremont, “ that while our supporting evidence is 
strong in corroboration of the prisoner’s defence, it 
is by no means conclusive ; or, rather, that it is just 
the kind of evidence that a jury may reject. A jury 
has moods and prejudices ; and the charge of the 
woman, with the immediate confession — as counsel 
against us will insist upon callmg the rejoinder of 
Travers — will be the two leading points in front of 
the prosecution.” 

“Yes,” said Tremont thoughtfully. “Of course, 
a direct corroboration of Dick’s story — the evidence 
of a person of credit who had stood by and seen and 
heard what passed — would have left no opening even 
for arrest, would it ? ” 

“None,” said Mr. Emden; “or if the police, in 
their anxiety to show that they were no respecters 
of persons, had laid their hands upon Travers the 
coroner would only have summoned him as a wit- 
ness ; and there could hardly have been any police 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF, 329 

proceedings to follow. As for the man Knott, he 
would probably never have been heard of, and if he 
had he could have been disposed of on a charge of 
criminal libel.” 

But, as Mr. Alcott Hume remarked, they were 
not dealing with might-have-beens ; and he would 
not disguise from himself that they had an up- 
hill and difficult road to travel. The story of the 
knife might be believed, or it might not. The man 
Knott would identify it as a weapon constantly in 
use by the prisoner on his expedition, both as a 
hunter’s knife, and, if we are to believe him — which 
we shall not — as an instrument he delighted to carry 
into every scrimmage with the natives, and which 
he used with deadly effect. The story of its gift to 
the Princess, set forth in the evidence of Estelle, had 
its value ; but the unfortunate kindness of the Som- 
erses to this witness covered her evidence with sus- 
picion. Even the courage of Travers, and his chiv- 
alry, would be turned agamst him ; his rescue of 
Miss Somers and her father was only an instance of 
his recklessness, acting without thought; that same 
impulsiveness might be a factor in guilt as well as 
virtue. The character of the man was of the dare- 
devil, reckless type. He had dashed in, for example, 
single-handed, to the attack of a score of well-armed 
natives on one occasion, when to do so seemed noth- 
ing short of his immediate death 

“ Granted such a nature,” said the lawyer, “ did 
not that point to manslaughter rather than murder. 


330 the princess mazaroff. 

even if Travers had killed this Anissia Mazaroff — or 
the Princess so called ? ” 

“ There is the motive against that, my dear sir,” 
counsel replied. “ ‘ I stood between him and another 
woman, and he killed me.’ Then there is his bribe 
to Vitre ; and his secret visit to the woman shortly 
before his proposed wedding ; his league with this 
man Vitre to deceive the woman ; his mad passion 
for Miss Somers. You know what a sentimental 
jury is — if the prisoner was base enough to deceive 
the woman and take her from her husband; and, 
furthermore, was base enough to desert her, and cap- 
ture the affections of a pure-minded and highly re- 
spectable girl, and, almost on the eve of his marriage, 
go to Paris to see his mistress, to whom he had 
promised marriage if she could get a divorce ; and 
who had bribed her friend to deceive and mislead 
her — such a man would not hesitate, in his despair 
at the exposure of his character, to kill the woman 
and leave it to be inferred that she had committed 
suicide ! The same reckless passion that would lead 
to such a crime w'ould, on the spur of remorse, lead 
him to confess what he had done. And a senti- 
mental and very respectable jury — a regular church- 
going virtuous jury, such as the county towns often 
produce— would, in their debate on the verdict, not 
fail to get it into their heads that, supposing the 
prisoner did not actually kill the woman, his con- 
duct was just as bad as if he had ; he had killed her 
reputation, he had ruined her body and soul, and 
having done this, had deserted her, and dared to 


The Princess mazaropf. 331 

form an alliance with an honoured and honourable 
family — and so on.” 

Tremont went away from this last consultation 
greatly disturbed in mind and spirit, with a curious 
if not a wild scheme in his mind for the salvation of 
his friend, whose position was to him a continual 
nightmare, haunting him with visions of the gallows, 
and made very real to him in the pale cheeks and 
sunken eyes of Evelyn Somers. lie had continued 
to visit Cleeve House since the catastrophe, and had 
had many conversations with Evelyn alone and m 
the presence of her father and mother. They invari- 
ably talked of the one theme about which everybody 
was talking, more especially as the days of the 
Assize trial came nearer. So anxious was Evelyn 
for Tremont’s visits that Mrs. Somers now and then 
felt the flickerings of an almost dead hope that after 
all she might call John Tremont son ; but this was 
indeed hoping against hope. 

Only a few days prior to the beginning of the 
Assize Evelyn had made a very strange remark to 
Tremont, during the course of a conversation upon 
the latest phases of the case against Travers, and in 
the presence of her father and mother. 

“ Oh,” she exclaimed, “ if there could have been a 
witness of that last meeting, some eavesdropper; 
some creature whose curiosity had led him, or her, 
to watch and overhear what passed ! Why did not 
that man John do it ? Or that girl who was so ready 
with her evidence? Or the butler? They would, 
no doubt, have been there readily enough if the 
occasion had been a trivial one.” 


332 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFE. 


Mrs. Somers did not care to say how unjust she 
thought Evelyn’s remarks ; her one idea had always 
been to soothe her and comfort her ; but her father, 
the Sheriff, could not help remarking that ‘‘ Every 
one appears to he in the wrong but the chief culprit ; 
though I feel sure the story Travers tells is the true 
one, it can hardly be regarded as a story to be proud 
of.” 

Somers had once or twice lost his temper just a 
little in this way, goaded by what he regarded as his 
daughter’s insane love for the prisoner, but the 
Rector at once came to her relief, and the interview 
ended with Evelyn being lovingly embraced by her 
father. 

The Wykehams were constant visitors at Cleeve 
House, and no two people could have been more 
sympathetic in word and deed. Mrs. Wykeham was 
the only one of the family who could awaken any- 
thing like hope in the despairing mind of Evelyn, 
and no one was so patient with her when she had 
what her father called her protesting fit on ; when 
she insisted upon repeating her declaration of un- 
dying love and devotion to the man who had brought 
disgrace upon all of them. The Wykehams were 
very popular in the village, and Ted had proposed to 
rebuild the tower and steeple of Charlton- Cleeve at 
his own expense — in token of his grateful sentiments 
towards both the Somerses and the Rector, and also 
in memory of the founder of the house of Wykeham, 
one William of that ilk. The Rector would not listen 
to the proposal, though he remarked that there were 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 833 

other objects sacred to Charlton- Cleeve upon which 
he might expend his money, whereupon Wykeham 
came to the conclusion that in honour of the Rector 
a village library, to be called “ The Tremont,” was a 
good idea, and so it was ; and it has been admirably 
carried out. A few local fanatics objected to the 
naming of the handsome little house of learning. It 
was not, however, until the conclusion of the trial 
of Richard Travers for the wilful murder of Anissia 
Mazaroff that they had ventured to express them- 
selves with anything like force or energy. 


334 


THE PRINCESS MAZABCEF. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

A LIE FOR A LIE. 

“Don Quixote is, after all, the defender of the oppressed, the 
champion of lost causes, and the man of noble aberrations. Woe 
to the centuries without Don Quixotes ! Nothing remains to 
them but Sancho Panzas.” 

Victor Hugo. 

“ Poor race of men ! said the pitying spirit, 

Dearly ye pay for your primal fall — 

Some flowerets of Eden ye still inherit, 

But the trail of the Serpent is over them all.” 

Moore. 

At last came the opening of the Assize, on a day 
that might have been the first day of summer. The 
sky was high and blue. A few white clouds were 
sailing along like ships that were homeward bound. 
The rooks at Charlton Manor were busy with their 
nests. On the steeple of the old church men were 
at work among intricate scaffolding. 

In the Assize city there was a bustle of coming 
and going from the County Hall to the Judges’ Lodg- 
ings, from the police-station to the railway. Every- 
body who had business connected with the Assize 
thought it desirable to put on an official air and 
make the most of it. The city population for the 
time being was increased by the presence of lawyers 


THE PniNCESS MAZAltOFF. 


385 


and their clerks, witnesses, and members of the bar. 

Cleeve House opened its doors to a number of 
friends for early breakfast. Originally when Mr. 
Somers forecast his intentions for this occasion there 
was to have been a repast for as many horsemen as 
chose to come to the board; but considering the per- 
sonally painful nature of the High Sheriff’s duties, 
only a few of his most intimate friends sat down with 
the family. At the same time, by way of showing, 
in an even more marked manner than was customary, 
the respect which the district entertained for the 
Sheriff of the year, some three hundred gentlemen 
assembled, splendidly mounted, to accompany him 
to the ancient city. 

The High Sheriff was a good deal overcome at this 
neighbourly tribute. He had not abated one jot of 
the pageantry of his attendance on the judges. 
Duty was duty ; and Mr. Sheriff Somers meant to 
show the county that he knew how to do his duty, 
both to the county and to her Majesty. 

It was a picturesque example of the honouring of 
ancient custom, the High Sheriff’s procession, with its 
plain, handsome carriages and its strong bodyguard 
of javelin men in the grey and gold livery of the 
Somerses, and when it drew up by the railway await- 
ing the arrival of the morning express, it was joined 
by the two professional trumpeters who for many 
years had officiated as heralds on like occasions. 

In due course the citizens knew that the judges 
had arrived by token of the blaring trumpets ; and 
presently the official procession wended its way 


336 


THE PRIJSrCESS MAZABOFF. 


through the streets, first to the quaint old mansion 
where the judges were lodged, and thence to the 
cathedral, where divine service^ was performed, and 
the Assize sermon preached by the Dean. Among 
the congregation were Evelyn, her mother, the 
Wykehams, and the Rector. Evelyn felt it a great 
mental relief to join in the prayers, adding to the 
general supplications her own private petitions. 

The Rector’s mind was in a tangle of hopes and 
doubts of overwhelming sympathy for Evelyn, of sor- 
row for his friends ; torn, too, with a scheme of rescue, 
the design of which, wliile it promised a certainty 
of Dick’s acquittal, involved for himself an over- 
whelming disgrace from which he could never hope 
to free himself. The idea had its motive in Evelyn’s 
outburst, “ Oh, if there could have been a witness of 
that last meeting, some eavesdropper, some creature 
whose curiosity had led him or her to watch and 
overhear what passed ! ” The seed thus planted had 
germinated and grown in Tremont’s mind until it 
filled it and the idea of it pervaded all his thoughts. 
How could such a witness be provided ? Would such 
a witness be effective? Was this the only way of 
safety ? Could he not be that witness ? He had slept 
but little since the thought first entered his mind. 
He tried to realise the effect of his evidence, and 
saw himself under cross-examination. Why at the 
last moment had he come forward with such a 
statement? Would not that question make his 
voluntary lie an injury to Dick’s cause rather than 
a good ? 


TBE TRINCESS MAZAROFF, 337 

When the service was over, instead of accom- 
panying his friends to the County Hall, to hear the 
commission opened and the proclamation against vice 
and immorality read, the Rector left the cathedral 
alone, and, taking a near cut to the river, between 
the Deanery and the church, wandered away into 
the open country, hoping to bring his thoughts into 
serious shape, and to evolve some way of arrivmg 
at a right conclusion. As to the lie, if he told it, 
that, he thought, would not weigh heavily on his 
soul. In his conversations with Father Dupont, of 
whose friendship the orthodox Charlton-Cleevers 
were very jealous, the accomplished anrl earnest 
Jesuit priest had dwelt fearlessly on the doctrine 
of mental reservations, and where a great and un- 
doubted good was to be wrought, he agreed with 
Tremont that the end would justify the means. 
Moreover, such was Tremont’s love for the two 
persons who were more especially in distress and 
tribulation that he would not have hesitated to 
die for them could he thus have ensured their hap- 
piness. There was the spirit of martyrdom in the 
Rector’s love and friendship, and he had of late felt 
himself severely alone in the world, despite the com- 
panionship of his books. Something had gone out 
of his life, and something alien had come into it ; he 
knew not what. He was not himself. He was un- 
happy without sufficient cause. Without reason he 
had blamed himself for what had happened at the 
Rectory. He felt that his unrequited, presumptuous 
love had in some way made the shadow that had 
22 


338 the pniJsrcEss mazaboff. 

fallen upon the lives of his two dear friends. This 
want of mental balance might have been the result 
of over-anxiety, of a solicitude for his friends that had 
set up something like a morbid condition of mind. 

He walked for miles and miles, and his latest 
resolve was to have an interview with Dick’s lawyer, 
whose zeal for the prisoner was intense, whose 
labour had been incessant. In all Tremont’s con- 
versations with him the lawyer, while expressing a 
hope that all would be well, did not for a moment 
under-estimate the great cause they all had for 
anxiety and prayer. He was a religious man and 
was known among his friends as the honest lawyer. 

It was sunset when Tremont crossed the Severn 
bridge on his way to the local hostelry where he had 
taken rooms. The March wind had risen as the sun 
was setting red and angry, and there were little 
shivering waves on the river and the sedges were 
full of weird whisperings. The lamps were being 
lighted in the streets, and a hawker was crying 
“ the true and correct list of all the prisoners to be 
tried before my lord judge, including the romantic 
and harrowing case of the Charlton murder.” Tre- 
mont, after a glass of sherry and a biscuit — almost 
the only refreshment he had taken during the day 
— put off the semi- clerical garb he had worn at the 
cathedral, and, assuming his usual dress, went out 
into the streets and listened to the talk of the place 
and occasionally took part in it. 

On all hands it was agreed that if his friend 
escaped it would be only by a miracle. Tremont 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


339 


ventured into the smoking-room of the best-known 
local inn, and here he heard the same terrible fore- 
cast. The prisoner was evidently, he learned, a hot- 
headed, passionate fellow, and had seen so much 
bloodshed in Africa, and had become so accustomed 
to have his own way, and so regardless of human 
life, that he, no doubt, forgot himself, and killed the 
woman as she had said, and to the tiuth of which 
he had confessed. Then it was argued that if this 
were so, his crime would be manslaughter ; but a 
lawyer’s clerk explained that the charge was mur- 
der, strengthened by motive, and that he was either 
guilty of murder or he was innocent ; no other charge 
could be preferred against him ; the coroner’s jury 
had made it wilful murder, the magistrates had 
committed him on that charge, and that was the 
charge upon which he w*as about to stand his trial. 
Passion was one thing; motive was another; “I 
stood in his way,” or, I stood “ between him and 
another woman ” — whichever the words might be 
— “ and he killed me ” ; and “ By God, it is true,” he 
said before witnesses ; how was he going to get over 
that? It was true, he said, some explanation was 
offered about the knife to take the sting out of the 
fact that it was his knife, and a knife which, according 
to the witness Allen Knott, he had used fatally on 
many a sanguinary occasion during his African ex- 
pedition ; but his secret relationship with the woman, 
his engagement to Miss Somers without having taken 
even his friend the Rector into his confidence, his 
heartless treatment of the Princess ; all this is strong 


340 the princess mazaroff. 

against him, tending to show the arrogance and 
recklessness of his character, and the bad experience 
of his African travels. “ Why, they say he had one 
of the natives hanged by inches, and if Knott, had 
not escaped he would have shot him, simply because 
Knott had dared to remonstrate with him about his 
unnecessarily harsh discipline and his cruelty to the 
hapless natives.” 

One of the speakers did not see how this evidence 
was going to be got in to prejudice the case ; and 
the lawyer’s clerk admitted the difficulty; but he 
knew that the effect of it would anyhow be got into 
counsel’s opening against him. Tremont found no 
gleam of hope in the minds of these people, and he 
traced in some of the malignant and untruthful 
statements the underhand work of Vitre and Knott. 
Vitre had retained a most powerful combination of 
legal force against the prisoner, and his chances of 
escape thinned out and became almost infinitesimal 
in Tremont’s troubled mind as he presently sought 
the house of the honest lawyer and discussed with 
him the possibilities of the effect of the new evi- 
dence, which he had thought of almost every mo- 
ment since Evelyn had endorsed the very remark 
he had heard at the legal conference touching the 
one weak link in the chain of the defence. 

The opening of the case against the prisoner was 
a powerful indictment. Counsel professed to be im- 
partial in his narrative. He succeeded, nevertheless, 
in presenting the prisoner to the Court, as wilful, 
passionate, sensual, and bloodthirsty, inconstant both 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


341 


in friendship and love ; one who, having seduced a 
woman from husband and home, was willing, not only 
to bribe her messenger, but had even offered him a 
thousand pounds to put her out of the way. 

“ Great God ! ” exclaimed the prisoner, in a sup- 
pressed voice, turning towards his lawyer, “ am I 
to ?” 

“ Hush, hush,” said the lawyer, leaning over the 
bar of the dock to speak to his client, who had grown 
suddenly agitated under the effect of this new charge 
against him. 

“ 1 repeat,” said counsel, “ that the prisoner, 
having already paid the Princess’s courier a hun- 
dred pounds to be the mouth-piece of his false mes- 
sage, had said in definite and unmistakable language 
that it would be worth a thousand to have her put 
out of the way.” 

It is not necessary to follow counsel throughout his 
address, which left a painful and saddening impres- 
sion upon the minds of the prisoner and his friends. 
The point having reference to Vitre’s evidence was the 
one upon which he laid special stress ; and we may 
as well come at once to that feature in the evidence 
offered in support of the learned counsel’s most con- 
vincing address. Vitre’s evidence was among the 
surprises which his lawyer had prepared for the 
Court in a brief of singular ingenuity and dramatic 
force. For a time Vitre followed the course of his 
deposition before the magistrates, and then departed 
from his simple line of truth with damaging effect. 
He told the story of Travers bribing him, told it 


342 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


dramatically, illustrating in his manner and method 
the alleged overbearing nature of the prisoner. 

“Yes,” said the examming counsel, “you have 
told us how the prisoner bribed you to keep his pro- 
posed marriage a secret ; now will you tell us what 
else transpired on this occasion ? what else did the 
prisoner say ? ” 

“ ‘ I wish,’ he said, ‘ you could put her out of the 
way altogether — that would be worth a thousand 
pounds,’ ” the witness replied, with calm delibera- 
tion. 

“ It is a lie ! ” said the prisoner, unable to keep 
back his angry protest. 

There was a great stir in Court, and something 
like an attempt at applause. 

The judge interposed with the usual threat to 
have the Court cleared if any manifestations of any 
kind were again attempted, and the honest lawyer 
spoke to the prisoner. 

“ I am sorry to have interfered, but the truth is 
bad enough without the lies that are being invented 
to hang me,” said Dick, once more assuming his 
former attitude of quiet. 

In cross-examination the chief point was counsel’s 
question — why Vitre had not made this last state- 
ment when he was before the magistrates, which 
Vitre simply met with the reply, “ I was not asked 
about my previous visit to Charlton Manor.” 
Vitre’s evidence was not shaken under cross-exam- 
ination ; and, re-examined, his declaration that 
Travers had said it would be worth a thousand 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 343 

pounds to put the woman out of the way seemed to 
gain weight and significance. 

Tremont paid very little attention to the evidence 
that followed this. The statement of the h'rench 
spy took hold of his imagination. He fancied he 
saw it working with the jury. It was far more 
damaging in its audacity than was the evidence of 
Knott, who identified the knife as one the prisoner 
had used in Africa, and whose attempt to impart 
into the case a prejudice that involved other ques- 
tions and other charges was stopped by the judge. 
Furthermore, under cross-examination his character 
suffered considerably. Not so the reputation of 
Vitre, who came out with a new item of credit and 
honour in his career with every fresh interrogation. 

As the day wore on, the Rector looked up with a 
sigh of sympathy to the seats by the judges where 
Evelyn was sitting near her father. Mrs. Somers 
had been obliged to leave the Court, and had 
gone home to the house which the sheriff had 
taken for the week of the Assize. Mrs. Wykeham 
was with her . Wykeham was sitting near Tremont, 
with whom he had many whispered conferences. 
The Court was crowded. The fashion and beauty 
of the county had secured places almost on the bench 
as well as in the galleries. The javelin men had 
found it difficult, even with the aid of the county 
police, to keep the corridors free from the pressure 
of the crowd without. The prisoner was dressed 
in a grey shooting-suit, with a white silk neckerchief 
drawn through a gold ring. He looked almost 


344 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


noble in the estimation of many persons in Court, 
his commanding figure, his steadfast eyes, his frank 
open face contrasting favourably with nearly every 
witness brought against him, though, in the opinion 
of others, his manner was arrogant and overbearing. 
Now and then he glanced towards Evelyn, whose 
eyes were constantly fixed upon him, while the 
eyes of the entire Court were upon both of them, 
Evelyn being indeed as much an object of remark 
as the prisoner himself. Sir Gordon and Gerty sat 
together in the body of the hall, the fine old York- 
shire baronet looking years older than when the 
reader last saw him at Charlton- Cleeve. 

On the third day of the trial, when the defence 
was drawing to a close, the prospects of an acquittal 
not having greatly improved even with the most 
strenuous efforts of counsel and witnesses, Tremont 
whispered to the honest lawyer, “ How does the 
case look now ? ” “ Doubtful,” was the reply. It 
is a toss-up,” remarked a junior counsel in the case, 
who had noticed from the first with sympathy 
Tremont’s great anxiety. “ I have drawn out a 
fresh draft of my evidence,” said Tremont, handing 
to the honest lawyer a neatly-folded packet. “ Read 
it, and I am ready to be sworn.” 

The honest lawyer was speedily absorbed in 
Tremont’s draft, and, having read it during a 
tedious cross-examination of Dr. Williamson, said 
to Tremont, “It is this that has been on your mind, 
then?” “Yes,” said Tremont. “I offer no com- 
ment — the situation is too grave.” He handed the 


THE PBINCESS M \ZAROFF. 345 

brief to counsel with the remark. “ Some extraor- 
dinary evidence, supplementary to the deposition of 
John Tremont. I would omit the latter part, which 
I have marked, leaving the motive to come out in 
cross-examination, or to be dealt with in re-exami- 
nation. The witness has evidently thought this 
out, too, by his notes ; it has been lying heavily 
on his mind, that is plain for some time.” 

Counsel read, and as he read he looked up every 
now and then at Tremont, curiously, inquiringly, and 
evidently in doubt. 

“ The next witness is mine,” said the counsel to 
whom the honest lawyer had spoken, “ if you 
approve ? ” speaking to his leader ; “ and he will 
astonish you ! ” 

Dr. Williamson had done himself no good, and had 
seriously hurt the prisoner’s case in a scientific 
wrangle with the Court ; and when John Tremont 
was called, his friend Richard Travers was looked 
upon by the majority of the people in Court as a 
doomed man. 

John Tremont, being sworn, turned his face to the 
examining counsel, and related, with the closest 
circumstantiality of detail, how, seeing Vitre and 
the foreign woman enter the Rectory, his curiosity 
was greatly aroused, and he had listened to the 
prisoner’s interview with Yitre and afterwards with 
the woman. The dining-room door being slightly 
ajar, he had taken his place between the door and 
the portiere, where he could both see and hear. 
Taken by counsel through the entire story, he 


346 the princess mazaboff. 

remembered every word that had passed, and in 
regard to the close of the tragedy he was very posi- 
tive as to the words that were uttered and the 
positions of the Princess and the prisoner in the 
room. They were quite a distance apart when the 
woman drew a knife from her bosom. Travers 
advanced towards her, whereupon she raised the 
knife against herself threateningly; the prisoner 
then stepped back as if to summon assistance, and 
the next moment she plunged the knife into her 
bosom. Travers rushed towards her, but with a 
great effort she turned from him. He then cried 
out, “ Help, help,” the servants came in, and she 
spoke the words they had given evidence of, and 
he replied, “ My God, it is true.” 

The Rector’s evidence wa's listened to with 
breathless attention. Once now and then there 
was a murmur of surprise and a shudder of doubt ; 
but, on the whole, it made a profound impression. 
The line of the cross-examination was obvious, so 
much so that counsel for the defence had not asked 
Tremont the whole of the questions that arose 
out of his confessional statement, namely, the 
motives for keeping back his evidence. He had 
himself thought of all this, and he knew that his 
motives must be so powerful that they would give 
full and complete strength to the one weak link in 
the chain of the defence. 

“ Very well, Mr. Tremont,” said the learned cross- 
examining counsel, “ you say you voluntarily played 
the eavesdropper, as you have confessed ? ” 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


347 


“ Yes,” said Tremont. 

“ In your own house, and upon your own 
guest ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Had you ever done such a thing before ? ” 

“ Not to my recollection.” 

“ Not to your recollection ? You would have re- 
garded it as a breach of good manners, and in the 
worst possible taste ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You are a very old friend of the prisoner’s?” 

“Yes.” 

“ And of the lady to whom he was engaged to be 
married ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

All eyes were once more turned towards Evelyn 
Somers ; all except the eyes of the witness and the 
prisoner. 

Travers, in his quiet patient way, watched Tre- 
mont with the deepest interest, his heart bleeding for 
him all the time, sensible of the tremendous sacrifice 
that his friend was making. Evelyn for a few 
minutes seemed to realise this as well as Travers 
did ; but in a little while she began to fancy that 
Tremont was telling the truth ; she did not stop 
to argue the point . or to think it out ; her ears 
simply drank in what seemed to be the reprieve, 
the release, the coming of Dick’s regained liberty. 

“ You are very much concerned at the prisoner’s 
position here to day ? ” 

“ Yes.” 


348 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“ Were you present at several of the consultations 
with counsel prior to the trial ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“Have you assisted in getting up the evidence 
for the defence ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Is it not notorious that you have laboured night 
and day in the prisoner’s interest ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And yet you ask us to believe that, having in 
your own breast a full knowledge of what had trans- 
pired at that fatal meeting between your guest and 
the murdered woman you have kept it there all 
this time ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Look at me, sir ; keep your eyes from the pris- 
oner.” 

Counsel was getting angry at Tremont’s coolness. 

“ Now, sir, you — a clergyman of the Church of 
England, knowing that you could have saved these 
two families all the trouble and anguish they have 
endured, knowing that, in all probability, you could 
have saved your friend from having to defend him- 
self against a charge of murder, you kept your guilty 
secret, you allowed him and them to suffer, you 
professed to be getting up evidence for him, and all 
the time you were playing the hypocrite. Is that 
what you ask us to believe ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Now, Mr.^Tremont, Rector of Charlton- Cleeve, 
listen! You are on your oath; no man is more 


THE PBINCESS MAZAROFF. 


349 


likely to understand the nature of an oath ; not only 
as to how it may affect his immortal soul, but touch- 
ing the responsibility that attaches to it in this life, 
the duty it entails to society. The word of an hon- 
ourable man is his bond ; you have taken a solemn 
oath. Very well. Now, is not the evidence you 
have just given the outcome of your fears for your 
friend, an after-thought for example, an act of 
self-sacrifice in the hope that you may secure his 
acquittal ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Oh, it is ; very well. You knew that if it were 
possible to get corroboration of his explanation of 
the death of his unfortunate mistress^ his case 
might be a very strong one before the jury ? ” 
“Yes.” 

“ And that is the explanation of your conduct, eh ? 
You come before this Court to commit wilful perjury 
in order that you may save the life of your friend ? ” 
This rough, daring, and cruel thrust created a sen- 
sation in Court. The high character of the Rector 
was well known throughout the county. If he was 
making some mad sacrifice for his friend he hardly 
deserved such a withering condemnation as was im- 
plied in counsel’s cross-examination ; and if he were 
telling the truth, the learned counsel’s question was 
all the more unpardonable. It was noticed that 
Tremont appeared to be somewhat weak in counsel’s 
hands ; but counsel had yet to make the blunder 
which is often made, both by witnesses and counsel, 
of attempting to prove too much. 


350 


THE PBINCESS MAZABOFF. 


“ I do not come before this Court to commit wil- 
ful perjury, but I do come to save my friend from 
the possibility of an unjust condemnation,” said Tre- 
mont, very pale, but his voice ringing out with all 
the tones of earnestness and apparent truth. 

“And that is the only explanation you have to 
offer us for the silence you have maintained until 
now, and for your sudden passion to confess what, 
in itself, if true, is little short of a crime.” 

“No, that is not my only reason,” said Tre- 
mont. 

“ Oh, indeed ; you have some other reason ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Will you be good enough to tell the Court what 
your other reason is ? ” 

“ I had ceased to care for Travers.” 

“ You had ceased to care for him ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You are a very strange person, Mr. Tremont.” 

“ Yes, I know it.” 

“ And you said nothing about your eavesdropping 
to the coroner or the police, because you had ceased 
to care for your friend ? ” 

Tremont felt that counsel had at last caught an 
inkling of how the strength of his evidence was to 
develop, and that he must assist the cross-exami- 
nation. 

“I had ceased to care for my friend because I 
loved the woman to whom he was engaged.” 

A hush of surprise, not to say indignation, went 
through the Court, and the counsel for the prosecu- 


TBE PUINCESS MAZAROPF. 


351 


tion, seeing too late the direction into which his 
cross-examination had been tending, sat down, re- 
marking that he had no more questions to ask, which 
of course, brought up the counsel for the defence, 
who proceeded to re-examine the witness. 

“ You had ceased to care for your friend, you say, 
because you were in love with the lady to whom he 
was engaged ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

« Were you jealous of him?” 

“ Yes ; he was my rival.” 

« Your rival for the affections of Miss Somers ? ” 

« Yes.” 

« And you hoped to have married Miss Somers ? ” 

« At one time, yes.” 

« Before the prisoner came on a visit to Charlton 
Manor?” 

“Yes.” 

“ Did she know of your hopes ? ” 

« I think so.” 

“ Did any one else ? ” 

“ Oh, yes — her mother.” 

“ And your friend, forgetting what is due to friend- 
ship, superseded you at Cleeve House ? Is that what 
you mean ? ” 

“ Yes, and I hated him.” 

The Rector spoke with vigour, and glanced at 
Travers, who gazed at him in amazement. 

“ And did you desire to win your way back to 
Cleeve House ? ” 

“ Not so much as to put him out of it.” 


352 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


“And you thought silence about what you had 
seen was the best way ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And why have you changed your mind now ? ” 

“ Fearing that I might be accessory to his death,” 
said Tremont. 

“ You feared that if you still withheld your evi- 
dence he might be condemned ? ” 

“Yes, and of late I have pitied Miss Somers. I 
have seen her frequently in the course of the pro- 
ceedings, 'and know that the death of Travers would 
kill her. Moreover, I do not wish to have the guilt 
of murder on my soul.” 

“ You understand that, in confessing to this with- 
holding of your evidence, and the reason for so 
doing, you brand your name with dishonour ; and 
that making amends at this last moment will not 
lift from your reputation the shadow of your crime 
— for, adopting my learned friend’s own stigma, I 
can call it by no other name.” 

“I am quite aware of all you say.” 

“ And, thoroughly and entirely understanding the 
responsibility of your position, you repeat that you 
withheld your evidence maliciously, permitting your 
friend to be branded as a murderer through your 
own default and fully conscious of his innocence.^’ 

“Yes, it is quite true,” said Tremont, stepping 
back in the box, and covering his face with his 
hands. 

The prosecution could not stand against the blow 
which it had received in this overwhelming evidence 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 353 

of John Tremont; nor did counsel appear to make 
any very strenuous effort to maintain its force. The 
judge summed up favourably to the defence, in- 
structing the jury that if they had any doubt in 
their minds as to the prisoner’s guilt, before or after 
the remarkable evidence of the Reverend John Tre- 
mont, it was their duty to give him the full and 
unqualified benefit of such doubt ; which they did, 
with unequivocal promptitude. They consulted 
together for only a few minutes, and returned a 
verdict of “ Not Guilty.” 

******* 

Mr. and Mrs. Richard Travers are settled at the 
Old Hall, Yorkshire. Dick is resolved to lift tiie 
shadow that, for the time being, has fallen upon the 
houses of Travers and Somers. And he will do so, 
no doubt, with the aid of a devoted and clever wife ; 
but he can never clear the name of his friend. For- 
tunately for John Tremont, he has an ample fortune 
and is without ambition. A poor man, or one who 
had to make his way in life, a man of any ambition 
or hope of place in the world, would have been handi- 
capped beyond his powers to make headway of any 
kind. Wherever he might have sojourned, in what- 
ever country, he would have been met at every turn 
with his shameless confession ; and his only answer 
by way of justification, if he dared make it, would 
show him to be worse than they thought — a liar, a 
coward and a perjurer. But Tremont was rich, and 
a philosopher; he was content to have served his 
23 


354 


THE PRINCESS MAZABOFF. 


friends, even at the expense of his honour and his 
name; and, having persuaded his conscience that 
he had done the right thing, he is not burdened 
with any distress of inmd. Under the circumstances 
his life is not without a certain charm of peace and 
resignation. He has given up the living of Charlton- 
Cleeve to the Rev. Jabez Odgen, who is very proud 
and happy in his exalted position ; but he has had 
his library removed to his new abode ; he has not 
left England ; he has not started on some outlandish 
pilgrimage ; he has not bowed his head like a cul- 
prit ; he has bought a freehold house and grounds, 
near Hammersmith, where he lives a retired and 
studious life, with the privilege of discovering London 
for himself. He makes frequent expeditions into its 
highways and by-ways ; finds out its secrets and its 
humours, studies its moods and its tempers, mixes 
with the multitude, attends its learned lectures, 
makes adventurous trips about the neighbourhood 
of Dock Head, delves into the narrow ways and 
passages of the Hew Cut ; visits some poor people 
in the Isle of Dogs ; and then, for a change, walks 
in the footsteps of historic heroes at Westminster 
and Hampton ; attends an occasional debate in the 
House of Commons ; sits with the people now and 
then in the pit of a theatre ; and once in a way 
writes one of those remarkable letters to the Times 
— on questions of ethical morality, the treatment of 
the Jews by Continental nations, and Discoveries 
among Books — that have given to the nom de plume 
of Lepidus a large measure of journalistic fame in 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 355 

America as well as England ; while several of his 
letters have been translated for the journals of 
France and Italy. 

Tremont has brought to London from Charlton 
Manor his butler, his cook, and his dogs. He may 
often be seen with a water- spaniel, a colley, and a 
Newfoundland along the riverside between Hammer- 
smith and Kew, watchmg them take a noisy bath 
together or competing for the honour of rescuing 
his stick from the tide to lay it at his feet. He has 
two London friends who invariably dine with him 
on Sundays, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Wykeham; and 
during the London season, when he is more than 
ever a recluse, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Travers pay 
him special visits. They know how deeply they are 
indebted to him ; they know that he has taken upon 
himself the punishment of another’s wrong-doing, 
but he will not permit any reference to the past, 
except to such of it as belongs to bright and happy 
memories. Sir Gordon Travers is not often in Lon- 
don, but the first house he visits is the quaint old 
place near Hammersmith, where the happy martyr 
lives. Sir Gordon has always spoken of him as the 
martyr, and will to the end of his days ; but he 
allows that Tremont is a philosopher in a million — 
an Epicurean, by George, without any of the Epi- 
curean vices, who has annexed their spirit of luxury, 
and tempered it with philanthropy, aye, and reli- 
gion, for what is true religion. Sir Gordon asks 
triumphantly, but to visit the sick and cherish the 
fatherless aud the miserable? Sir Gordon almost 


356 the princess mazaroff. 

forgets the name of Mazaroff and the year of Somers’s 
shrievalty, when once in a way, on his visits to Lon- 
don, he dines with Tremont, to meet Mr. and Mrs. 
Wykeham. By George, Tremont was right, he 
Avould exclaim ; a man might live in a wilderness and 
he happy with such a cook, such a wine-cellar, and 
such a library as Tremont possessed. “ And such a 
digestion as yours. Sir Gordon,” Wykeham would 
observe by way of repartee. Mr. and Mrs. Somers 
found themselves rather lonely at times, but they 
consoled themselves with the knowledge that Evelyn 
was happy ; and Grafton made more and more a 
companion of his wife. They had once or twice 
been up to town to see Tremont, thus completing 
his circle of visiting friends. Pie had no other than 
those with whom the reader is acquainted, and he 
has made no new ones. Considering that he drew 
the lightning of the storm upon himself to protect 
his friend, he is not much hurt. A weaker man 
might have perished under the shock. 

Whether or not an author starts his story with 
the intention of pointing a moral as well as adorn- 
ing a tale, he usually, in the opinion of his readers, 
commits himself to a moral. The moral of this tragic 
story of the Princess and the Pioneer is obvious in 
the train of miseries that followed the departure of 
Dick Travers from the path of honour. Tremont 
only permitted himself one remark to Dick, concern- 
ing his perjury, and it was intended as much for 
Evelyn and the Somerses as for Dick himself. “ If 
the blind woman with the scales,” he said, “ had con- 


THE PRINCESS MAZAROFF. 


857 


demned you, my brother Ogden or some other equally 
good clergyman, however much he might have be- 
lieved in your guilt, would have smoothed your way 
to Paradise. How much easier should it be for 
me to make my peace with Heaven? Don’t trouble 
about me, Dick.” 


THE END. 



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THE PRINCESS MAZAROEE 


A ROMANCE OF THE DAY 


KY 

JOSEPH HATTON 

AUIHOR OF 

BY ORDER OF THE CZAR,” “CLYTIF, ’ “CHRISTOPHER 
KENWICK,” “JOHN NEEDHAM’S DOUBLE,’' ETC. 


“ Everything is two-iaced — even Virtue.’’ 

— Balzac^ 


NEW YORK 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 


150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE 

































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